


Peter Parker, Limb-Reattacher

by havetaoque



Series: Spideypool stories [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: (it's Wade), Avengers - Freeform, Blood, Character Death, Dark, Feelings, Feels, Fluff, Heads, Language, M/M, Masturbation, Ninjas - Freeform, Non-con Drug Use, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Peter dealing with acute PTSD from Gwen's death, Secret Identities, Sex, Spideypool - Freeform, The Hand, Togas, Violence, Yakuza, but for legit reasons like gaping wounds, collecting, my summary sounds so peppy, painkiller highs, team ups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-20 10:25:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 42,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10660632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havetaoque/pseuds/havetaoque
Summary: When Wade stumbles into Peter's apartment one night and dies on his floor, Peter knows he's in for a ride. Daredevil is also on the roof. Whaaat?/Peter teams up with Matt and Wade to fight the Hand and maybe falls in love along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

Peter woke with a start. Someone was in his apartment. He lay still for a moment, listening, and heard booted feet on the floorboards. A thick wet sound like a body falling to the floor made Peter jump and he cursed, throwing off his quilt.

He went to investigate, clinging to the ceiling. Sure enough, a body was sprawled on the threadbare rug near the couch, blood seeping into the floor. He dropped off the ceiling, landing lightly beside the body.

It was Deadpool. He was missing both katanas. Peter covered his mouth when he saw the dripping stump of Deadpool’s right arm that ended abruptly below the shoulder. The rest of his arm was wedged beneath his chest. Tears sprang to his eyes and he raced to the kitchen, fumbling for a glass of water. He dropped the first one and it shattered on the tiles. He stepped in the shards as he hurriedly filled and drained another. Taking a deep breath, he went back to the couch, back to his dead friend. He sat on his hands until they stopped shaking and his breathing had relaxed somewhat.

Peter had never seen Deadpool die before. He’d heard lots of stories, some from Deadpool himself, but he’d never _seen_ it. The last person he had seen die was Gwen. Peter took a deep breath of cold air from the open window, feeling the panic subsiding. He knew Deadpool would wake up, but he looked so still. Peter wondered if he should try to reattach Deadpool’s arm. He could see the stump starting to regenerate, a thin layer of new skin beginning to form at the edges of the slashed suit.

Peter got up and knelt beside Deadpool. He tugged the arm out from under him and held it against the man’s shoulder. It was kind of fascinating, watching the two ends of bone knit back together, before they began to disappear under the first layers of muscle and the fine mesh-like network of capillaries. Peter held onto his arm until it was reattached enough to keep going without him holding it up.

He stood up, shaking, and went over the window. There was blood on the fire escape. Peter climbed out to take a look. The trail came from above, so Deadpool must have been on the roof. A thick splatter of red made the top landing slippery. Peter heard another pair of booted feet on the roof and he ducked out of sight. His spider sense didn’t go off, so he crept up the side of the building the last few feet to the roof and peered over the edge.

Daredevil stood near the maintenance doorway, head cocked. Suddenly, he faced Peter.

“Spiderman?” he asked.

Peter froze. He wasn’t wearing his suit. Not that Daredevil could see him, but…

“H-how did you know?”

“Heartbeat,” Daredevil said, as though that explained everything. Peter took in the blood on the roof and saw Deadpool’s bloody katanas on the ground.

“What happened here?” Peter asked, stooping to pick up the swords. A dozen bloody broken arrows lay scattered across the rooftop too. He took one of those as well.

“Wade and I were tracking a group of ninjas who work for The Hand. They were supposed to meet a convoy a few streets over and guard it. We chased them up here.” Daredevil frowned. “Where’s Wade? I can’t hear him.”

“He’s um. He’s dead for the moment. He’s on my rug.” Peter swallowed down the panic again.

Daredevil walked toward him and patted his back. “He’ll be okay. But their arrows were poisoned, so it may take him longer to come around. Are you alright?”

Peter didn’t team up often with Daredevil, didn’t know who he was out of the costume, but there was something about him that had made Peter immediately trust him. When Peter had been grieving and coping with Gwen’s death, Daredevil had found him and helped him through a panic attack.

“It’s just…I haven’t seen anyone die since…”

“Ah,” Daredevil said.

“And he’s a friend, you know? I held his arm while it…regrew. I don’t like seeing him hurt like that or hearing him fall to the floor. It just kind of freaked me out, I guess.”

“That’s understandable,” Daredevil said. “Have you ever thought about going to therapy? There are meetings for people with PTSD.”

“And tell them I can shoot webs and stick to buildings and regularly engage in violent extralegal activities at night?”

Daredevil chuckled. “Well, when you put it that way. Actually, I was thinking of the Avengers. I heard Steve and Bucky started some sort of discussion group where you can talk about trauma in a safe environment. I know it’s helped Tony. Maybe it would help you?”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

“And you can always talk to me too.”

“Thanks, Daredevil,” Peter said.  

“It’s Matt.” He smiled, sensing Peter’s surprise.

“Thank you, Da--Matt. Um.”

“You don’t have to tell me your name if you don’t want to, Spidey. And I won’t tell anyone where you live.”

“Does Deadpool know I live here? Since he…since he’s in my apartment.”

“I don’t think Wade knows. I wish I had been here when he was attacked, but I was in the alley on the other side of the building dealing some other ninjas. These guys are dangerous. Some of the things they do… I would advise you to stay away from them if you can, but I know you’ll do what you have to.”

Peter nodded. “I’ll be on the lookout.” He decided he would do some research on these ninjas. If they were able to overpower Wade, and Daredevil was cautious around them, he would need to be prepared as well. “If I can help in any way though, I will.”

“I’d appreciate it. But, Spidey, I’m not joking, these people are dangerous and if you decide to team up with me against them I’m afraid some of the things they do might give you panic attacks. Also, you’ll never be safe again once you’re on their radar. I’m not trying to scare you off, this is just what we’re up against.”

“No, I get it.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll give you my number and I’ll be there to help if I can. Let’s check on Deadpool.”

“He’s still out cold,” Daredevil said. “He should come around soon. Lead the way, Spiderman.” He followed Peter off the roof and down the fire escape to Peter’s open window.

Deadpool was still on Peter’s floor. Peter turned on the lights and set his katanas and the poisoned arrow against the wall. He scribbled his number on a post-it note for Matt and went into his bedroom, hunting for gloves and a vial to take a sample of the blood on the katanas. He’d analyze it at Stark’s labs later.

“What are you doing?”

“Gathering blood samples. Maybe it’ll help you with those ninjas. And I can probably make an antidote to the poison they use on their arrows.”

Daredevil looked like he’d solved a puzzle. “Oh. It makes sense now.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“So you haven’t told Wade your identity?”

“No,” Peter said, collecting the blood into the vial. “He’s never even seen my face. I mean, I guess you haven’t either, but you could still tell? How can you tell from my heartbeat?”

“Everyone’s heart sounds a little bit different,” Daredevil said. “I’m sorry. It was dangerous and unfair of me to out you like that on the roof, but I wasn’t expecting you out of costume on a strange rooftop just after a fight. I’ll listen for what you’re wearing next time.”

“Thank you,” Peter said slowly. He set the vial down and walked over to Deadpool. He sat down by his head and reached out to touch him. His body was cold. Peter withdrew his hand. “Maybe we should turn him over.”

“I think he’s –”

As he spoke, Deadpool gasped and began coughing. Peter reached out to help him sit up and got punched clean across the room. Deadpool got to his knees, breathing hard, and coughed up blood. It dripped through his mask onto Peter’s floor.

“Fucking arrows in my lungs. Those ninjas are wild.” He moved onto the couch and looked around the room for the first time, squinting in the brightness. Daredevil was on the couch beside him. A skinny guy was leaning against the wall, holding his stomach. Deadpool watched him stand up.

“Who’s that cutie in the corner?”

“That is the nice young man whose rug you bled out on after breaking and entering, Deadpool. That’s a misdemeanor crime of illegal trespass.”

“I love it when you speak legalese.”

“And you also just assaulted him.”

Peter chuckled. “I won’t press any charges. Do you want something to drink? You did just come back from the dead.” He headed toward the kitchen and flicked on the light. The glass shards were still there, so he stepped carefully this time.

“Dying is thirsty work, my friend, oh hello!” Deadpool’s masked eyes went wide. “You have maybe the second nicest ass I have ever laid eyes on. Doesn’t he, Daredevil? Look at it!”

Daredevil just glared at him. “Water, if you have any, please,” he said to Peter.

Peter brought back three glasses of water and set them down on the coffee table, avoiding the bloody stain on the rug.

“Can I touch it?”

“Deadpool, you don’t just ask to touch other people’s bodies.”

“I do! Mostly Spidey’s because Spidey has the greatest bod in all of the multiverse!”

Daredevil facepalmed. “I apologize for him. That’s just how he is.”

“It’s okay, really,” Peter said. He felt strange acting like he’d never met either of the two men on his couch. “So, you can’t die?”

“Healing factor, courtesy of creepy mad scientists and a certain smelly guy with claws. Hey,” he said, wiggling his left arm, “I thought I’d have to grow a whole new arm.”

“Oh, I um, I reattached it when you were,” Peter trailed off, gesturing at the rug without looking at it.

Deadpool gazed up at him with a look of adoration. “Can I marry you? The perfect partner is the type who would hold our arm on while it grew back.”

“I thought Spiderman was your guy?”

“He is, but I try not to die around him. It upsets him. He’s lost a lot of people.” Deadpool rolled up his bloody mask to sip his water, angling his face away from Peter.  

Daredevil gave Peter a sympathetic look. Peter felt guilty, now that he knew Deadpool didn’t feel like he could come to Spidey for help.  

“I’ll pay for the damage to your rug,” Deadpool said, after yanking his mask back in place. He narrowed his eyes. “Also, why are you so cool with the fact that a man just died on your floor and now you’re serving him water and holy fuck is that a vial of blood on your coffee table?”

“Uh,” Peter said articulately, heart racing. He snatched it up and stuck it in his refrigerator.

“Wow that’s not suspicious or anything.” Deadpool chuckled. Then his voiced turned deadly serious. “I hope that’s not my blood you got in there, sweetums.”

“What! No, it’s… I got it off your swords. I can analyze it. I do forensics for Spiderman sometimes.”

Deadpool perked up. “Oh, so _you’re_ the secret in with Stark that Spidey has! What a coincidence.”

Peter smiled nervously. “Yup. That’s me.”

“So what’s your name, bubble butt?”

Peter froze, heart beating wildly. Daredevil--Matt sat very still.

“It’s Peter.”

“Aw, he’s scared,” Deadpool cooed. “That’s so cute. You’re such an adorable little twink. I’m keeping him, Daredevil! You have Claire and now I have my Petey to patch me up! No medical skills required!”

Ah, well Peter totally walked into that one. He exhaled nervously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right now it's a one-shot, but I may continue it. I've been wanting to write these two for ages, but I still need practice.  
> In the mean time, enjoy! And get hyped for all these Marvel films coming out! We'll all be broke by fall!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets a visit from the Hand (why does that sound so weird?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote another chapter. I can't guarantee this will be continued though. I have a lot going on in the coming weeks. Consider the first chapter a potential stand-alone, and this as a supplemental continuation for now. You can maybe expect more supplemental continuations after this one. That's so fucking vague, I'm sorry xD  
> Thank you for reading :)

When Peter woke up the next morning, there was a new rug on his floor.

“At least it’s not shaped like a dick,” Peter mumbled. He snatched up his glasses from his nightstand and shuffled out of his bedroom to make coffee.

There was a pile of pancakes on the table. Not on a plate, but directly on the table. Peter frowned and picked one up. “I suppose it was too much to hope for,” he said, rolling his eyes. He started the coffee machine and went back to examine the pancakes, some proudly sporting dicks in chocolate chips and banana slices. Peter bit into one, trying not think too hard about the fact that Deadpool’s dick pancakes had him moaning at the taste. Peter ate three more before moving the heap to a Tupperware container and stashing them in the fridge.

Twenty minutes later, he dashed out the door, lab coat flapping over his arm, blood and poisoned arrow stowed carefully in a small sample receptacle he’d nicked from Oscorp back when he was an intern there. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Deadpool sneaking into his apartment at all hours of the day, but he’d sort that out later.

“Good morning, Mr. Parker,” JARVIS said, when Peter stepped into the elevator. “Analyzing some more covert samples?”

“Right in one,” Peter said. “Hey, J, do you know anything about an organization called the Hand?”

“Indeed, sir. They deal in modified heroin and have been known to engage in human trafficking. My databases indicate that they’ve been around for several centuries.”

“I see,” said Peter.

“Lab Nine is clear until one o’clock today. Good luck, Mr. Parker.” The elevator stopped on the twenty-second floor and Peter got out, thanking JARVIS.

Peter pushed open the metal doors and headed for his desk in the corner by the window. Project notes for a new piece of Stark tech were haphazardly stacked in one corner. Peter pulled on his lab coat and went to prepare a reagent and get the blood analysis going.

He sat back down at his desk and took the arrow out of his bag, turning it over in his hands. Pulling a gooseneck magnifying lens toward him, he peered at the shaft and the arrow head and switched on another light to see better. He was so caught up in his observations that he didn’t hear the door the open. His spider sense tingled down his spine an instant later, and he looked up to see a woman standing by a table, watching the blood analysis run.

“Can I help you?” Peter asked. She was wearing a lab coat, but Peter had never seen her before. A quick glance at his watch told him it was a little past ten. JARVIS said no one was due to enter this lab for another few hours.

She angled her body toward him and dragged her eyes from the blood analysis. Her lab coat hung slightly open and Peter’s spider sense tingled a moment before he saw the flash of something metallic holstered on her hip.

“Is that an arrow?” she asked, coming toward him.

“Ah, yes.” Peter pushed back his chair slightly, thighs tensing. “Do you like archery?”

Her eyes flicked between the arrow and Peter’s face. “That doesn’t belong to you,” she said.

“Very good. You’re right. A friend asked me to see what it was made of. He’s looking to get some new arrows, so I said I’d take a look.”

“You’d be wise to leave it alone if you knew what was good for you. The blood too.”

They stared hard at each other.

“Okay, this little chat was fun. I’m sorry,” Peter said, standing up. The woman tensed up. “You’re not authorized to be in this lab. I’ll have to escort you out.”

“I can see myself out, thank you,” she said. She stalked back across the room and slipped out. Peter noticed she had a Stark employee ID card on her lab coat.

He sank back down in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. “Shit,” he breathed.

He fumbled for his phone until he remembered he didn’t have Matt’s number yet. There was nothing to be done for now, so after checking on the blood analysis, Peter went back to work on the arrow. He recognized the poison and set to work creating an antidote.

The hours ticked by without interruption. Bruce wandered in toward the end of the day, mumbling a hello, grabbed a file and went back upstairs to Tony’s private lab. The antidote was finished by then. Peter packed it away in his stolen Oscorp container, which he slipped into his backpack. He shoved the printout of the blood analysis data into a folder, tucked it under his arm, and headed for the door.

He exited Stark Tower, rolling his shoulders. Daredevil hadn’t contacted him yet, but he probably needed a day or two to heal from his own injuries from the previous night. Peter’s mind drifted back to a certain red and black situation, wondering how he was supposed to keep his identity safe when Deadpool could pop in at any moment.

He got the feeling he was being watched, but his spider sense hadn’t gone off yet. He stopped by a taco truck and ordered some food, crouching down on the pretense of riffling through his bag for his wallet. He didn’t see anyone suspicious behind him. These Hand people were well-hidden.

As he walked away, taco in hand, he felt the telltale tingling of the spider sense starting at the back of his neck. Peter took a big bite of the taco, tilting his head sideways to get the meat slipping out and giving the other side of the street a good look.

There. A man – Peter assumed he was Japanese – was walking in the shadows, matching his pace. He looked away when Peter’s eyes fell on him and raised his left wrist to his mouth, lips moving rapidly.

 _Shit_ , Peter thought. He began walking a little faster and stuffed his glasses and the folder into his backpack one-handed. A man brushed past him and Peter’s spider sense went wild. He dodged to his left and the man’s attack met only air. Peter got a glimpse of a slim stiletto knife. He shoved the man into the side of a building and took off down the street.

 _Find an alley_ , he thought. He ducked into the first one he saw and sped down it, kicking off the side of a dumpster. The men were close behind him, too close for him to risk being seen scaling the wall. He ducked behind another dumpster and crouched behind it. Realizing he still held a half-eaten taco in his hand, he tossed it into the dumpster and waited.

The first man ran straight into his fist and staggered back. Peter kicked him in the chest and spun to face the second man. He caught his arm and punched him in the shoulder, jerking his arm backwards.

“For a bunch of guys who call themselves the Hand, you sure aren’t too handy at fighting.”

The man grunted, but kept attacking. Peter had never fought anyone who used this particular style. The man was well-trained in some sort of martial art and his attacks kept Peter on his toes. The first man came at him again from behind, grabbing his backpack and pulling Peter to the ground.

“Hey, not cool, man!” Peter said.

He twisted away and leapt back to his feet easily. Pushing off the wall, he barreled into the man and threw him against the side of a dumpster. The man’s head bounced off the metal with a dull sound and he head-butted the second man.

“Wish I had my web shooters,” Peter muttered under his breath. As Peter Parker, he couldn’t fight back with his full abilities without risking exposure, and he certainly did not need the Hand to know who Spiderman was. He just need to knock these guys out, then he could get into his suit and shake them off before swinging home.

That was the plan.

Then he heard a familiar voice singing off-key. “Mental wounds still screaming, driving me insane, I'm goin' off the rails on a crazy train!”

Peter cursed loudly and purposely swung his fist too wide, leaving himself open for attack.

The man Peter had tossed against the dumpster caught him with a shoulder to the stomach. Peter cried out at the impact and the second man punched him in the face. More blows rained down on him and he slipped down the wall. Deadpool popped his head around the entrance to the alley, just in time to see the men grabbing at Peter’s backpack, jerking and twisting. Peter felt his shoulder pop.

Then, as predicted, his attackers were abruptly thrown off him. Four shot kneecaps later, Peter was hoisted over the merc’s shoulder.

“I was just coming down to Stark Tower to see about those blood samples and get another glimpse of that sweet ass, baby boy. Didn’t think I’d be saving it instead.”

“Thanks,” Peter said to Deadpool’s back.

Deadpool patted Peter’s backside fondly. “I’ll take you home, Petey.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter because I have some free time now.

Half of Peter’s face was turning purple by the time Wade got them back to Peter’s apartment. He set Peter on the couch with a glass of water and a stack of re-heated pancakes from Peter’s fridge and went into the bathroom in search of a first aid kit.

Peter held onto his arm, curling into himself. Dislocated joints sucked balls.

“Petey, where’s your stuff?”

Peter groaned. “It’s in the cabinet under the sink. _Damnit_. Could you help me with my shoulder first?”

Deadpool skipped back to the couch. “Sure thing, baby boy. That must hurt like the dickens! Heh, do they say that because Charles Dickens wrote stories about cute lil suffering orphans? Shit, that’s Spidey’s backstory. Hehe. _Hard_ times, let me tell you.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Deadpool, can we please get on with it?”

“Yes!” Deadpool gripped his elbow gently and realigned his arm. “Okay, I’ve totally done this before in the military. On the count of three: one—”

“FUCK!”

“There. All done!”

Peter sagged back against the couch, panting. He glared at Deadpool, who just grinned widely beneath his mask.

“Better, Petey?”

“Better. This will be sore for a while though.”

Deadpool took a pancake off the plate on the coffee table and neatly stuffed it into Peter’s mouth. “Eat up. You need to keep up your strength to heal those muscles.”

“Thanks,” Peter said around a mouthful of re-heated dick pancake, “for the food. And the rug.”

“Think nothing of it!” Deadpool said, tossing his head as though he were flinging back a Thor wig. “Though I actually recruited _you_ to be _my_ limb-reattacher, and here I am doing all the reattaching! Er, relocating of joints? So really, baby boy, I think you owe me one.”

Peter stared at him. “Huh?”

Deadpool rolled his eyes, and the gesture was conveyed somehow through his mask. “I’m kidding. I would gladly help out a hot piece of ass like you free of charge. Though usually I’m not the one putting people back together—”

“Right, you don’t have to finish that sentence,” Peter muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face and wincing when he put pressure on his black eye. “I’m gonna get some ice for this.” He got up and wandered over to the freezer. The glass shards were still on the floor from last night. He’d forgotten to sweep them up that morning. Peter kicked the larger bits into a corner absently and emptied his ice tray into a tea towel.

He padded back toward the couch and sank down next to Deadpool, who had the first aid kit on his lap. Peter held the towel of ice in one hand and turned to face Deadpool, sitting sideways on the couch.

“This might sting a bit,” Deadpool said. He dabbed at some of the cuts on Peter’s face with an alcohol wipe. He was much gentler than Peter would have guessed, explaining what he was going to do before touching Peter each time he put on a butterfly bandage or cleaned around a cut. Peter had had worse before, but it was kind of nice to be taken care of like this. There wasn’t really anyone with whom Peter could share this part of his life.

The ice was starting to melt a little, so Peter pressed it against his swollen face when Deadpool moved to his other cheek.

“You’ll have one hell of a shiner tomorrow.”

“That’ll be fun explaining to my co-workers.”

“Just tell ‘em you got it in a bar brawl over some chick. Macho points for the little lab nerd.”

Peter blushed. “I don’t... I mean, they wouldn’t buy that. I’ll just say I got mugged. It’s close to the truth.” He shrugged.

“Did you get any information from your tests?”

“I haven’t had the chance to look at it yet, but I was able to create an antidote to the poison on the arrows. It’s a poison I’ve seen before, so it wasn’t too difficult.”

Peter sat still as Deadpool patched him up.

“You’re holding up pretty well, you know,” Deadpool said, tilting his head to look at Peter. “You just got stalked and beat up on by members of the Japanese mob – low level members, but still yakuza.”

“Yeah and a really creepy lady visited me in the lab today to warn me to stay away from the Hand. She had a Stark ID badge. I don’t know if it was a fake, but if the Hand is in other companies, they might have infiltrated Stark too. I don’t know. You’d think JARVIS would be checking up on that sort of thing. Not much gets past him.” No indeed, Peter thought, not even secret identities. On his first day working for Tony, JARVIS had greeted him as “Mr. Spiderman” in the elevator, like he always did when Peter was at the Tower for missions. Thank goodness they’d been alone. Peter had explained his secret identity thing to the AI, who promised to respect his wishes. JARVIS was a champ.

Deadpool frowned. “Petey, this is dangerous stuff. I know you said you help Spiderman out occasionally with forensics and shit, and Daredevil and I appreciate what you’re doing for us, but we can get by without you. You don’t have put yourself in more danger than you’re already in. We shouldn’t have asked you to do this. You’re a civilian.”

“I volunteered for this, Deadpool. I can handle it.”

The ice was really starting to melt now, so Peter got up and put the whole thing in the sink.

“I’d feel better if someone was watching your back until we get a handle – ha – on the Hand. They know where you live. You could come stay with me. You’d be safer there. Or maybe you can ask Spidey to guard you?”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll ask Spidey. Not that I don’t want you to guard me, it’s just that I’m… pretty close already with Spiderman, and you’ve got your hands”—he smirked—“full with the Hand.”

Deadpool cackled, throwing his head back against the couch. “Baby boy, if you weren’t Spidey’s, I would totally ask you out.”

Peter flushed and gaped at Deadpool. “Huh? I’m not… He and I aren’t—a thing.”

“Oh,” Deadpool said. “Huh.”

He stuck his hand out, and Peter stared at it blankly.

“I’m Wade Wilson,” he said. “You can call me Wade.”

“Hey, Wade.” Peter smiled, which quickly turned into a grimace with his banged up face. He shook hands with the merc he’d known for a couple of years as his alter ego.

“Uh,” Peter began, blushing. They were still shaking hands. “Are you hungry? I was going to order pizza tonight.”

Wade grinned. “Sure thing, Petey! I’ll pay.” He pressed a gloved finger over Peter’s lips when Peter made to object. “Ah, ah, ah. I’m paying. You got beat up in an alley today. You relax.”

Peter nodded mutely. Wade’s hand dropped away, and Peter’s lips felt cold.

 

 

Two days later, Spiderman was out patrolling the city. He spotted Daredevil, locked in combat with the Lizard a few blocks over and webbed his way over to help out. Matt was impressive. Peter spared a second to watch his fighting style. He could definitely learn a thing or two from him. Peter usually relied on his superior speed, reflexes, and spider sense if he had to fight in close, but picking up some formal martial arts training sounded like a good idea, especially if he was going to help out with the Hand like he’d promised.

Peter rolled his shoulder, still a little tender from the fight he threw, and swung in close to land on the Lizard’s back, shooting webs at his arms to restrain him. Between the two of them, Peter and Matt managed to send the Lizard slinking back into the sewers.

“Thanks,” Matt said.

“Sure thing. I usually deal with him when he decides to come up on street level. Not sure why he wandered over into this area.” Peter perched on the wall beside Matt. “Hey, Matt, I’ve been waiting to hear from you. I don’t have your number, so I couldn’t text you, but I made an antidote to the poison. The blood analysis didn’t turn up anything, but I can try running more tests if we can collect fresh blood.”

The devil eyes on Matt’s mask stared at Peter. “You gave me your number on a post-it note, Peter.”

It took him a split second.

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry! I completely forgot.”

“It’s fine,” Matt said, laughing. “You were pretty rattled when I outed you on the roof, so I’ll let it slide. Wade hasn’t been able to shut up about you, you know. The Peter-you, that is.”

“Really? So he’s not into Spidey anymore?” Peter asked, amused and a little pleased, hearing that Wade talked about _him_.

“Oh, no I’m sure he’d want you both if he could. How do you feel about him, though? The way he talks about you is different than the way he talks about Spiderman.”

“What do you mean?”

Matt shrugged. “His heartbeat is a little faster when he talks about Peter, and, I don’t know, he seems less… Well, you know how he has a huge crush on Spiderman, but that’s more hero worship. With Peter-you it’s just different.”

“Oh,” Peter said, not sure what to say. Part of him was glad to hear that Wade talked about him, but another part wondered what it meant if he was starting to like Deadpool in that way.

“Anyway, I have to go now,” Matt said. “Tell me your number again?”

They exchanged numbers, and Matt vanished around the corner of the alley. Peter shot a web up to the roof and swung away.

After he had gone a few blocks, he noticed a red and black figure sitting on top of a Chinese restaurant and landed beside him.

“Hey, ‘Pool.”

“Hiya, Spidey! What’s new? I haven’t seen you out for a few days.”

Wade put down his takeout container and chopsticks and tugged his mask down.

“Been a little busy with work and stuff lately.” Peter was very thankful for the job his mask was doing, hiding a major black eye. “Daredevil told me you guys could use some help with the Hand.”

“If you could lend a hand, that’d be great,” Wade said, grinning. “I will never run out of hand puns. That was so funny in that one issue when Daredevil actually gave me my own hand.”

“Issue?”

“Yeah, my hand got cut off, and I asked for a hand, and he gave me my hand.”

Spidey pulled a face beneath the mask. “Uh, that was nice of him. Anyway, what can I do?”

“You can keep an eye on your cute little not-boyfriend. He got attacked the other day on his way home from work. Luckily, someone was there to rescue him and patch him up!”

“Peter isn’t my boyfriend. But yeah, he told me. I’ll watch him. What?”

Wade looked hard at him. “You do that. He doesn’t deserve to be wrapped up in this fucked up ninja plot.”

“Don’t worry, I got him.” Peter sat down beside Wade, a tad miffed Wade didn’t think he could take care of himself. If only he knew.

Wade nodded. “Okay, Spidey. He’s a good kid. He put my arm back on for me when I – got injured. Kid’s got a strong stomach.”

“Wade, really, you’re not bad to look at. You’re like super built.”

Wade gave him a funny look at the use of his name. Spidey usually stuck to calling him ‘Deadpool.’ Peter went still when he noticed his slip up, but recovered quickly. “Got any extra food?”

Wade tossed him a brown paper bag. Peter pulled his mask up over his lips, just enough to expose his mouth and hide his black eye and cuts. He opened a container of meat dumplings and sucked out the juices contentedly.

They sat on the roof together and Wade rambled about ninjas, strawberries, lornadoons – “such a weird fucking name, Spidey” – and Peter.

 

 

It was late afternoon on a Sunday this time. Peter stepped out of the shower, steam billowing around him as he opened the door, and nearly slipped in a puddle of blood. He shrieked and almost dropped the towel around his hips, hands caught halfway to covering his mouth in surprise.

“Hey, baby boy,” said a head on his floor.

Peter pressed a hand to his chest and breathed deep, fighting away the shock and panic of almost stepping into a pool of blood with his bare, freshly-showered feet. At least this exposure seemed to be helping him cope with his panic attacks.

“Hi, Wade,” he said, shakily.

“Could you maybe reattach me? I was doing pretty well, holding my head on, but I tripped on that stupid rug and now my body is over there—” his masked eyes flicked toward the rug by the couch – the one he had bought Peter as a replacement – “and I rolled over here. By the way, you have a lovely singing voice.” Wade’s head winked at him.

Peter flushed a bright red that went all the way down his neck and chest. “I wasn’t singing…” he mumbled. “Er, okay, here. Don’t you die on me!” He readjusted his towel, hiking it up to his chest, and reached down to pick up Wade’s head.

Peter had many questions, such as _how long can you survive without a head? Do you grow a new one or a new body? What happens to the old head? How is he even talking? He’s not attached to his lungs!_

But because he was tactful and this was the merc with the mouth, he didn’t question it and hurried over to Wade’s body to hold his head on straight.

That was how he found himself sitting naked on the floor with Wade’s head in his lap and a lot of blood soaking into his towel and skin. Wade, of course, was talking the whole time.

“You smell nice, Petey,” Wade’s head said, from between Peter’s thighs.

“All I can smell is blood. I think you’re imagining things,” Peter said. He absently stroked Wade’s head.

“A little to the right, baby boy. There, that’s perfect.”

Wade’s spinal cord finished healing with a pop and his neck began knitting itself together. Peter sat quietly, hands gentle beneath Wade’s head to support him.

Wade cleared his throat as the bottom of his throat reattached itself. “I think I’m good to go, but if you want to keep me nice and cozy next to your junk that’s fine by me too.”

Peter chuckled and withdrew. His towel was soaked through with blood, so he pulled it away from his skin where it stuck and left it on the floor, before he ran back into the bathroom to wash off again.

“You owe me another rug!” he called, as he pulled the door shut.

“Seltzer water and lemon, sweetums!”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets a new rug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been forever and I'm sorry (it's so short)! I have some more written, so fear not (too much)!

“What about this one? It’s less expensive than that rug.”

Peter looked at the price tag and choked. “It’s nine hundred dollars! I’m not buying a nine hundred dollar rug for you to bleed all over.”

“ _I’m_ buying it, Petey! Maybe I want to bleed out on luxury.”

“Well, I’m not comfortable with you buying me a rug that expensive. And I don’t _want_ you to bleed out all the time. Just because you heal doesn’t mean you should take crazy risks!”

“But I’m so much more efficient because I’m not afraid of dying. I’m the best merc in business!”

Peter crossed his arms.

“But Peter—”

“No.”

“Fine.”

Peter pushed the shopping cart down the aisle, putting distance between them and the Oriental rugs section that Wade had dragged him into while telling him about the time he was executed in Mongolia.

Peter led them to the clearance section and found a nice burgundy rug for $29.98. He put it in the cart and pretended not to notice Wade sneaking a Deadpool plushie in as well.

Wade paid for everything at the checkout and offered to carry the rug back on the subway. So they sat side by side in the subway car, an odd-looking pair squished together by the press of the other passengers, one man with katanas and a red and black suit, holding a rug, and another man in jeans and a faded t-shirt, clutching to his chest a mini plush version of the red-suited man sitting beside him.

When they got back to Peter’s apartment, Peter placed the Deadpool plushie on his couch, and he and Wade set to work scrubbing the blood out of the floor again.

“I have a feeling there is going to be a permanent stain here,” Peter groused, scrubbing his ruined bath towel over a particularly persistent spot. He poured a little more bleach onto the cloth and kept rubbing.

“Good thing the new rug is big enough to cover it up then,” Wade said from somewhere behind him. Peter looked over his shoulder and frowned. Wade was sitting on the couch, watching him scrub.

“Hey, get down here and help! This is your blood.”

“Nah, I think I’ll stay right here. Nice view.” Wade held out his hands, making a frame with his fingers to focus on Peter’s ass.

Peter didn’t know what possessed him, but he gave a little wiggle and smirked over his shoulder before resuming his scrubbing. Wade whistled.

“Oh-kay, fine. I’ll help. Let me just put on my French maid outfit.”

“Your what?” Peter squeaked, hoping he was mistaken. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Did you seriously just say French maid—”

“Ta da!” Wade leaped in front of Peter – Peter didn’t even have time to consider how he had changed outfits so quickly – and struck a sexy pose, one hand on his hip, the other behind his head. Deadpool was rocking the outfit, Peter had to admit.

“Very fancy,” Peter said, smiling.

“You likey?”

“I likey.” Peter smirked and stood up. “Now get to work, Deadpool.”

Wade pretended to swoon. “I love it when you’re demanding.”

Peter chuckled.

Wade paused mid-swoon when he saw Peter moving to sit back on the couch.

“Wait, seriously?” he asked.

Peter shrugged, grinning. “Well, since you’re dressed for the job, I’ll let you finish up.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spiderman and Deadpool have an argument

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a nice longer chapter after that tiny filler :)  
> And prepare for angst, friends.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kudos and the comments! Comments are the only sustenance I require.  
> Also, NEW THOR RAGNAROK TRAILER.

Almost two months, Peter mused, as he flipped through the calendar in his kitchen. Two months since he'd started having his rug replaced on the regular. He was on rug number ten, by his counting.

The latest incident had occurred just last week. Peter woke up in the middle of the night and went in search of a drink, only to find Wade passed out on his couch, arm dangling off the side and coated in dried blood. A little pool of blood had sunk into the carpet where his fingers trailed against the ridiculously fluffy rug they’d purchased together. Peter sighed and padded across the room toward his new friend. He checked Wade for further injuries, but found him all healed up.

“So you just come here to bleed all over everything now, huh?” Peter huffed, crossed his arms, and regarded the sleeping merc with a fond, sleepy smile.

Peter got a glass of water from the kitchen before returning to shove a pillow under Wade’s head and prodded him until he seemed to be in a more comfortable position. Then he stuck a post-it note to the Deadpool plushie’s forehead and went back to sleep.

 _You owe me another rug, idiot_.

When he got home from work the next day, there was what looked suspiciously like a hand-made rag rug on the floor. All of the rags were red and black, so three guesses who had made it. Peter was oddly touched by the gesture. He moved it into the bathroom where it could safely soak up something that wasn’t blood.

 

"When's it gonna be ready?" Wade whined from the couch.

"Thirty-four seconds, calm your tits, big man," Peter said, laughing. The popcorn bag was ballooning nicely in the microwave. So what if it was the fourth bag of the evening? Wade ate a lot with his healing factor. Peter could have eaten more too, but he tried to cut back on the amount of food he consumed around Wade. It would look awfully strange for someone of his size to go through three large bags of popcorn.

The microwave _dinged_ and Peter plucked the bag out, tugging open the ends. Buttery steam fogged his glasses immediately, but he managed to get most of the popcorn into the bowl blind. Matt would be able to do it, so should he. He carried it back to the couch and took a seat beside Wade, cradling the bowl on his lap while he cleaned his glasses on the edge of his shirt.

Wade took a large handful of popcorn and started the movie up again. He leaned back into the couch, one arm casually around Peter – he had been doing that more lately, Peter noticed smugly – and his feet up on the coffee table.

Peter tucked his feet under him and leaned a little closer to Wade as they watched a guy who looked like a young Magneto fuck up an undercover mission. Their hands bumped accidentally in the popcorn bowl.

***

Peter left work later than usual after a long conversation about gamma radiation with Bruce Banner. Finally free of the building, he headed to a bagel shop he’d never been to before, at JARVIS’s recommendation.

Peter spied two men sitting closely together in a corner of the shop, newspapers open to the business section, but their heads were bowed over something out of Peter’s view. One of the men turned to check the clock on the wall and Peter looked away quickly. He recognized them now. (Thanks, JARVIS!) They had been attempting to rob a jewelry store a few nights ago and they managed to not only make off with the contents of the cash register, but also several diamond necklaces. Peter hadn’t been able to stop them.

While he waited for his bagel sandwich to come up, he subtly webbed both men’s shoes to the ground with a new webbing he’d developed recently for use as Peter Parker. It was clear and didn’t make the tell-tale _thwip_ sound he secretly loved when exiting his discreet everyday webshooters.

“Peter?”

Peter turned back to the counter to pick up his order and left the bagel shop. When he was farther down the street, he called the police, sat down on a bench, and ate his dinner while watching the two thieves fall over in their attempt to run when the police entered the shop. Serves them right, Peter thought, savoring the egg and cheese.

A few moments later, his spidey senses tingled. He forced himself to relax before glancing around, looking for any yakuza creeping on him.

Peter walked toward the intersection and quickly picked out six separate pedestrians, walking briskly in the same controlled manner. He watched them as long as he could, and then the lights changed and he lost them. His spidey sense tugged at the back of his neck persistently though. Peter frowned and turned around, but saw no one. He walked back the way he’d come, half-eaten bagel sandwich forgotten in his hand.

A few streets over, Peter picked up the scent of blood. He jogged down the alley, lab coat flapping behind him, and pulled up short at a dumpster that smelled strongly of rotting flesh. Peter gaged at the stench and took a hesitant step forward, hoping his intuition was wrong.

He leapt onto the edge of the dumpster and was immediately sick to his stomach. Deadpool’s body lay in a twisted heap, his head pillowed on garbage bags and glass bottles. His suit was torn and his skin was deathly pale like Peter had never seen before.

Peter slid down into the dumpster in shock. Something slimy oozed through the seat of his pants, but it hardly registered with him.

“Wade?” he called softly. “Wade, please wake up.”

Peter pressed a tentative hand to Wade’s shoulder and shook him lightly. “Wade?”

There were gashes and bloodier patches in the suit around his arms and thighs and neck. _Arteries_ , Peter surmised. _They bled him_. _They fucking bled him to death_.

“Wade?” His voice cracked.

He could have compressed the entire dumpster between his hands, he was so enraged.

But instead he cried.

Two hours later, the alley was pitch black, and Matt found him passed out from exhaustion in the dumpster.

 

Peter wasn’t sure how he ended up in his apartment, but when he came to, he was lying on the red and black rag rug on his bathroom floor. He sat up quickly, clutching his head at the sudden pressure change.

The door opened and Matt walked in to lean against the doorjamb, still wearing his suit, but without the horned mask.

“What’s going on?” Peter croaked, surprised at how raw his voice sounded.

“You passed out in a dumpster. I brought you back here. And you were kind of covered in garbage and blood, so, bathroom.” Matt made an uncomfortable sound and tilted his head toward the bathtub. Peter turned to look and felt hollow again.

Wade lay in the bathtub, still unconscious, but he was breathing shallowly now. Peter exhaled shakily and leaned against the side of the tub, propping his chin on his arms.

Matt broke the silence. “Did you have another panic attack?” he asked.

Peter shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. I was just…” He shrugged and sighed. Exposure therapy did the trick apparently, he thought wryly.

“I think he was – I think he was waiting around to walk me home from work. He’s been doing that sometimes. Not regularly, but when there’s yakuza around or something. Ever since that first time I got beat up. God, I should have been there. I should have been there to protect him.”

“He’s going to be alright, but I know that isn’t the same,” Matt said softly. “They must have overwhelmed him.”

“They bled him,” Peter bit off. “Why?” He looked up at Matt. Matt came into the bathroom and sat on the closed lid of the toilet.

“The Hand has been conducting some kind of blood transfusion,” he explained. “I think that’s why their warriors have no heartbeat and seem to have enhanced reflexes. I found one of their factories a while ago and it – it was horrible. People in cages, tubes, needles. It was a fucking farm. A fucking nightmare.”

Peter shuddered. “Think they wanted his healing factor?”

“Probably. Nobu can already return from the dead, but it has a cost, I’m sure, and my old teacher said that beheading will put him down for good. But nothing can stop Wade.”

“No,” Peter agreed, and his mouth twisted into something that was half pride and half sadness.

 

When Wade woke up in the bathtub with the proper amount of blood in his body, the first thing out of his mouth was a Monty Python joke about blood donors, which promptly led to Peter furiously wiping his eyes and fleeing the bathroom, demanding that Wade shower and wash his suit, and shut up, idiot, I’m fine.

Peter took a turn in the shower next while Matt remained in the living room with a soaked Wade, watching all the windows and the door.

 

***

Peter dove across the corridor and fetched up hard against the wall in a heap. HIs costume was torn in several places where katanas had grazed his skin. A clash of swords and a series of cracks and dull thuds meant Matt and Wade were still fighting off the last of tonight’s yakuza, hopefully driving them back into the sewers. This was not how Peter thought it would go.

Maybe he just had bad luck in sewers. They were too wet, too dark, too cold and brought back memories of fighting the Lizard which made him think of Captain Stacey, which made him think of Gw--

Peter heard Deadpool curse loudly before shooting his opponent at point-blank range. His enhanced hearing easily picked up the sound despite the silencer on the gun. Peter knew Wade was frustrated by his limited weapon choice in the sewers, but the chance for bullet ricochet was too great in such close quarters.

A whisper of soft leather told him someone had come up behind him. Peter leaped off the wall, twisting in midair and avoided the sword by sheer luck. Through the tears in his suit, he could feel the _woosh_ as the blade slid just a hairsbreadth from his thigh. He shot a web at the ninja's face, but that didn't slow down the attack. Peter watched with a mixture of fear and awe as the ninja attacked again, as though being unable to see or _breathe_ was barely something to bat an eyelash at. Not that he could with the webbing over his face. While Peter scuttled back along the wall, the ninja tore off the web and came at him again, panting. Peter dodged again and considered investing in some kind of defensive tool for parrying swords, because yeah that katana was coming a little too close to his limbs and Peter liked his limbs where they were.

The ninja was herding him away from his friends, down another tunnel in the sewers. Peter fired a few more webs at the ninja's feet, hoping to slow him down. The ninja dodged the first two, but stuck fast to the floor on the third, and a fourth web plastered his sword hand to the wall. Peter swung past him, delivering a sound kick to the head for good measure, and raced back the way he... thought he'd come.

The sewers were laid out like the streets above, but between the darkness and the adrenaline pumping through him, Peter momentarily lost his sense of direction. He spun around wildly when a splash sounded to his right and saw another ninja coming toward him. He ran in the other direction. It _sort_ _of_ looked like the one he'd come from.

The sounds of fighting grew louder and Peter sped up, emerging after several wrong turns into a large juncture where several tunnels merged. The floor was slick with moisture and mold and blood. Peter scrunched up his nose and kept going until he saw familiar blurs of red in the dim light.

"Daredevil! On your four!"

Matt twisted around and knocked the ninja flat with his billy club.

"Spidey!"

Deadpool skewered a ninja and raced toward Peter, dripping blood from several wounds. "Are you okay? You were right there and then we couldn't see you anymore!"

"I'm good," Peter said. "But they don't trip my spider sense. Got herded pretty far down the tunnels."

Matt felled the last ninja and stalked toward them, chest heaving. "Stick closer to us next time, Spiderman," he said. "We need to work on your hand to hand combat if your spider sense doesn't work."

"Agreed," Peter said, still shaken up from his first real fight with the Hand’s ninjas. Peter had a pretty badass roster of enhanced villains to deal with regularly, but they tended to be loner megalomaniac types with tendencies for grand gestures and public displays in the city, which meant plenty of space to swing around. The Hand struck silently in numbers in the dark, and Peter had found himself floundering more than once during the night's fight. He would need to find a slightly different approach to this sort of combat.

Wade laid a hand on his shoulder. "You did good for your first time against the Hand."

Peter shrugged. "Thanks."

"Did you destroy the blood?" Matt asked.

They had decided that Spiderman, with his wall crawling abilities, would sneak into the cargo holds at the docks to find and destroy the blood they took from Wade, while Deadpool and Daredevil would attack the main group on the ship as a distraction. After ripping door after door off metal cargo holds, Peter finally found a gallon-sized jar of blood that matched Wade’s when he compared it to the sample he’d taken. Strangely, it wasn’t in any sort of glass tank, like he’d expected, but in some ancient-looking clay pot inscribed with writing Peter couldn’t make out. Peter pried the lid off the jar and poured in a chemical he’d whipped up in the lab to eat away at the blood. It ate away the jar too and the metal of the box beneath it. Peter considered it a success when there was nothing left except for melted metal where the vessel had been.

The shock had come when Peter found the rendezvous point empty. He had followed the sounds of fighting toward the sewers, taken a deep breath, and gone in after them.

Peter smiled. Even if he hadn’t been able to save Wade on that horrible day, at least he’d thwarted the Hand’s attempts to use his blood against them. That was a whole other level of violation Peter didn’t want to dwell on. “It’s gone. They won’t be able to get anything from what’s left – which is basically nothing.”

Wade sighed in relief. “Thanks, Spidey.”

“I also found this,” Peter said, digging into a pouch on his belt. He withdrew a small vial and held it up. Matt extended his hand for it and Peter gladly gave it up, happy to get rid of it. It gave off an unpleasant vibe that had been tripping his spider sense all evening, like static on a radio. "What is it?"

"This feels like some sort of new drug they've developed," Matt said, rolling it between his fingers. “I found similar vials in Madame Gao’s hideouts, but I wasn’t able to take any with me.”

“I’ll ask my friend Peter to check it out at the lab.”

“Are you sure?” Matt asked.

Peter nodded. "Yeah, it’s no problem." Deadpool frowned but remained silent, cleaning off one of his knives.

The silence was broken by a persistent _Foggy...Foggy....Foggy_.

"Excuse me," Matt said, pulling out his phone. "I'll contact you all in a few days. Let me know what Peter finds." He picked up the call and jogged back down the sewers. Peter watched him until the darkness swallowed him up. He was suddenly exhausted.

"Well, I'm going to head home now," Peter said. "Want to get some dinner first?"

"You're keeping a close eye on Peter, right?"

The unexpected non-food-related response caught Peter off guard. "What? Yeah, of course. He's safe. Don't worry about it."

"I do worry though," Wade said. He sheathed his knife and started pacing. "I don't like the way you keep volunteering him for things like this. This is dangerous, Spidey. The Hand already beat him up once. He's on their radar. They'll be watching him if he's got the new drug and you can bet they don't want that anywhere near Stark's labs."

"Look," Peter said, feeling slightly annoyed, though he knew Wade was technically not at fault, "Peter is tougher than he looks. I know him. Plus he wants to help and we kind of need him. He's safe with me, I promise."

"No offense, but you're not as experienced fighting the Hand as I am."

Peter bristled, hearing what Wade really meant: _You're not as good as me._

It was true, but it still stung. Wade ploughed on.

"I want you guarding him day and night until that sample is analyzed and out of his hands. I get that he prefers you to watch him since you're so close, I get that. But please, please--"

Peter held up both hands in surrender. "Okay. Okay. Calm down. I’ll stick to him like glue. Can we go eat now? I'm starving."

"I care about him, Spidey!" Wade shouted. He froze and looked as if that sudden admission had stripped him bare.

"Yeah, well you're not the only one that cares about Peter! I'm perfectly capable of protecting him." And _wow_ that sounded not at all like how he meant it. Wade tensed, masked eyes narrowing with something like jealousy, and Peter froze at the spider sense that reared up and vanished in the next instant. He knew he needed to back track. Peter liked Wade and wanted to keep him as a friend.

"I'm sorry. It's not like that, Wade."

"It sounded a lot like that."

Peter rubbed the back of his neck and let his posture drop into something less combative. He hadn't even realized he had been gearing up to fight again. What was his life that it had come to this? One minute he was watching movies at his apartment with the guy who was slowly becoming his best friend (and maybe something more?), and the next he was lashing out in annoyed paranoia over something so stupid. But Wade didn’t know they were the same man. Shit, how would he explain this? Would he explain it at all?

Peter fumbled for an excuse. "I'm just feeling kind of... insecure right now? I got my ass handed to me more times tonight than I'm comfortable with."

"So you think maybe I should be the one watching Peter, is that what you're saying?"

"That's not--"

"--But you don't want him around me. I'm not good enough for him." Wade turned away and then stepped back into Peter's space. "God, Spidey, I know that! He deserves so much more. But I'm a selfish asshole and he hasn't told me to fuck off yet."

“Wade, you’re not—“

“Come on.” His voice was hollow. “And it’s Deadpool to you. You can be a real dick sometimes, you know that, Spidey?”

Peter frowned. “What?”

Deadpool huffed and crossed his arms. Peter mirrored his posture without thinking, and they both stood in the chilly sewers, glaring at each other.

Finally, Deadpool sighed loudly and uncrossed his arms. “I’ll be out of town for the next two days on a job,” he said.

Peter clenched his jaw angrily. Deadpool hadn’t talked about his mercenary work for a few months. Peter knew he was doing it now to deliberately anger him. Worse even, Deadpool didn’t seem to care about getting Spiderman’s approval anymore, not by the looks of it.

Deadpool watched the tension mount in Spiderman’s limbs. He stalked up to him, poking him in the chest. “If you really care about Peter as much as you say you do, then you’ll watch over him while I’m gone.”

“I’d do that even if you were in the city,” Peter retorted.

Deadpool loomed over him, close enough that Peter could see his pulse thrumming rapidly in his neck.

“I’m going to go see him before I go. Don’t come around until I’m gone. I want to speak to him alone.”

Peter nodded sharply. Deadpool gave him a long look and walked away down another sewer tunnel.

Peter stood alone in the dark. The steady drip of water along the walls echoed loudly in the tunnels. He stood there, rooted to the spot, until Deadpool’s angry footfalls faded into the ambient sounds of trickling water and the occasional lizard scuttling along the stones.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered, and dashed toward the closest manhole cover. He had to get back to his apartment before Wade showed up.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter waits anxiously for Wade to show up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Here we go again. michelle1307's comment gave me the nudge I needed to get back to work on this fic.

Peter landed on the side of his apartment building and crawled around toward his window. He scanned the streets for Deadpool, but the merc was nowhere in sight. Thank goodness for small mercies.

He headed straight for the shower, shedding his torn suit with a grimace of disgust at the sewer grime that saturated the material. He threw it into the sink with a capful of detergent to soak and stepped gratefully under the hot spray.

“Ew.”

The shower water turned grey as it swirled around the drain, carrying the grime right back into the sewers. Peter shuddered, thinking about all the fluids from all the people that went down every shower drain into the sewers he had just been rolling around in with ninjas.

“Ugh,” he said, and squirted an extra-large glob of shampoo into his hands.

He closed his eyes as he lathered his hair and tried to relax. Matt had given him some breathing techniques to do for his panic attacks and for relaxation when he got too stressed.

“Inhale…”

He coughed, spitting out soapy water. “Exhale.”

Never mind.

Eyes still closed, he continued to scrub his scalp and then let his mind wander in the absence of visual distraction. His fight with Wade kept replaying in his head, the harsh words, the misunderstandings, the… confession.

Peter ducked back under the shower spray and rinsed his hair. He opened his eyes, but the memory persisted. Wade looming over him. Wade looking ready to fight him. Over him. What the fuck.

Yeah, that one was entirely on him. God, why was he such an idiot? He could trust Wade by now. He knew that.

But he’d dug himself into a hole, and by this point, Wade would be furious if Peter told him or if – even worse – if he found out himself. Peter wasn’t sure which outcome he preferred. Matt said he should just confess, but Matt would say that, wouldn’t he?

Peter dropped the soap and sighed despairingly. He was being dramatic, but so what?

He needed to tell Wade. He would tell him tonight when Wade came by, though wait, he wasn’t supposed to know that. But he’d do it then. For sure. One hundred percent.

Where’d he put that drug vial? Peter pulled the shower curtain back in a panic and dripped water all over the black-and-red rag rug when he hopped out, soap bubbles clinging to his chest.

It was still in the pouch on his suit… along with his web cartridges which were now soaked in Downey. Last time he’d done that, his webs had come out smelling like detergent and hadn’t that been embarrassing to explain to criminals?

Peter removed the cartridges and the vial of Evil Liquid and set them on the counter next to the sink. He’d have to hide the vial somewhere Wade wouldn’t find it. Spidey wasn’t supposed to come by until after Wade had left, he remembered.

Peter finished his shower in a rush, heart beating wildly at the impending expected-but-unexpected visit. He stashed his suit away without drying it in the corner of the cabinet under the sink and threw on yesterday’s t-shirt and a clean pair of boxers, aiming for a night-in not-expecting-anyone-at-all look. But if he was going to tell him the truth, what did it matter?

 

The waiting was killing him. Peter drummed his fingers on his kitchen table and pushed aside the half-eaten bowl of soup. He kept the lights off, preferring the darkness to brood. Fewer distractions. Just sounds. The nervous _tap tap tap_ of his fingers on the table. The ambient sounds of his apartment building.

The sewers had been dark too. And Wade had seemed dark – a looming, dark, angry shadow. Peter’s thoughts wandered, stress settling around his shoulders until he was quivering with it.

God, he really _had_ fucked up tonight. The Hand had caught him off guard the entire time. Usually, Peter’s fights were _somewhat_ civil, in the way of the established give and take of creative insults and sass. And _supervillain egos_ – they were a pain sure, but Peter at least knew he wouldn’t die without some sort of long-winded likely very public supervillain speech, during which, of course, he’d find a way to outwit whomever had him cornered. It was personal. It was thrilling.

The Hand, on the other hand… The Hand was everything Peter feared. They weren’t just highly trained warriors, they themselves were weapons. Peter hadn’t detected a single emotion from any of them all night, and he certainly hadn’t seen any ninjas groaning after taking a hit from him (though he had a very limited sample size to extrapolate from, in that case). These people killed and they didn’t care. Peter wouldn’t get the chance to talk them down or take them in or try to help them. He’d be dead as soon as he diverted his attention to anything other than staying alive. To be honest, he’d been on the defensive more often than not, and he wasn’t used to that. No wonder Matt hadn’t asked for his help before. No wonder the Avengers never invited him to join them. He wasn’t good enough.

And Wade was better than him too.

 _Because you hold back?_ he wondered. But Peter wasn’t a killer and didn’t want to be one. He held back in all of his fights because one punch from him – one punch without holding anything back – might as well be a cinderblock falling onto a ripe melon. How did you fight an enemy when killing was the only feasible way to stop them? Peter could sort of kind of see the appeal of Wade’s philosophy. But that didn’t make it right.

Were the Hand ninjas actually people though? They behaved more like focused, intelligent zombies. And Matt had said something about their blood. But that shouldn’t matter right? It’s still killing. Just because Wade comes back doesn’t mean it’s okay for him to die so often. Peter let his head fall against the table and sighed. This brooding was getting way too existential and he was bruised and sore and exhausted.

Where was Wade? It was almost 2:00 AM and the merc hadn’t shown up yet.

Peter got up and rinsed his bowl. Then, remembering that yes, it was 2:00 AM and Peter Parker would be asleep by now since he was not expecting any visitors, Peter headed for his bedroom and crawled under the covers. He lay in the dark, trying the breathing exercises again.

He closed his eyes.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Ninjas.

Exhale.

Darkness. _Fuck, stop it._

Inhale.

No spidey sense.

Exhale.

Helpless.

Peter groaned and punched his pillow. A seam burst and the stuffing stuck out like a tongue mocking him. This wasn’t helping at all. His mind was way too active. _Fucking ninjas_.

Peter threw the covers off and got up. He walked up the wall and stood on his ceiling for a while, hands on his hips.

“Okay, Parker. Calm down. We’re safe. We’re not in the sewers anymore. The Hand isn’t here. Wade’s on his way. Just act natural.”

He began pacing on the ceiling.

 

Wade didn’t show up for another hour and Peter was barely holding it together while watching the clock.

“Wade, I’m Spiderman. Wade, I think I’m in love with you so please don’t be mad but I’m Spiderman. Wade, I’ve been lying to you this whole time and I’m a horrible person. Wade, I am literally the worst and you should leave me. Wade, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m about the fuck it up entirely. Wade, I’m –-”

Something tapped at his window. Peter flipped off the ceiling and peeked into the living room. Wade was crouched on his fire escape, pushing the window open carefully. Peter waited until he’d stepped inside before showing himself.

“Hey, Wade. I wasn’t expecting you.” OH MY GOD. “I mean, well, you show up at random times all the time, so I’m kind of never actually expecting it, but also I am?” He paused. “No blood this time?”

And yeah, Wade was completely blood-free and he actually smelled kind of nice.

Wade chuckled and took a seat on the couch, dropping a duffle bag on the floor by his feet.

“Hey, yourself, Petey-pie. Sorry to wake you up.”

“No worries,” Peter said. “I was up already. Couldn’t sleep.”

Wade looked up sharply. “Are you okay?”

Peter froze for an instant, but covered it up quickly. “I’m fine.” He sat down next to Wade, leaving some space between them – Wade’s muscled body towering over him, threatening violence was still fresh in his mind. But Wade put an arm around him and drew him closer.

Peter sighed softly and pressed against him, feeling all of the tension leave him. Odd, that. This Wade was comforting and soft and stroking a thumb absently over his shoulder. Peter suddenly felt lower than the sludge in the sewers. How could he do this to Wade?

“You’re stressed out,” Wade said. “Tough day at work?”

“No more ninjas if that’s what you mean. Entirely uneventful.”

Wade hummed, but didn’t reply. Instead, he reached into the duffel bag and drew out a shiny phone.

“This is for you.”

Peter stared at it. “I already have a phone?”

“I know. This is a burner phone. I’m going away for a couple of days and I’d like for you to have a way to contact me in an emergency. In a way that won’t be traced back to you like with your regular phone.”

He was serious, which was unusual for Wade, but Peter could see the remnants of Deadpool’s concern from the sewers behind Wade’s words. Wade had cooled down from the fight, but he hadn’t been joking, and he _was_ taking this Hand situation way more seriously than Peter had been. Now that Peter had had a taste of what the Hand was truly like, he realized that Wade’s concern hadn’t been so farfetched. Peter himself had been quietly spiraling into near panic attacks all evening, for crying out loud.

“Thanks,” Peter said, taking the phone. “I hope I won’t need it.”

“I hope so too. But you never know. Spiderman promised to protect you while I’m out of town. You’ll be safe, Petey. He fought alongside me tonight and he did really well. You’ll be safe.”

“He… he did?” Peter asked, dubiously.

“Yeah,” Wade said. “He’s Spiderman. You couldn’t keep him away from an evil organization threatening the city. Of course he came to help.”

Not the part he'd meant, but Peter nodded. He took a deep breath. Here goes: “Right. Um, about that – him… I need to tell you something.”

Wade pulled his arm from around Peter’s shoulders slowly, his expression shuttered. “Don’t. It’s okay, Petey. I know.”

“You know?” How could he know? Well, he wasn’t stupid, Peter knew. But—

“I know. I thought that maybe – but obviously – it wouldn’t.” Wade stood up, dislodging Peter from his place squished against Wade’s side. Peter stuck his hand out to keep from faceplanting in the couch cushions.

Peter didn’t know what to say. What was going on?

“I’ll come right back if you need me. I promise,” Wade continued. “After this, I won’t take any more jobs until we’ve handled the Hand.”

And he was deadly serious, Peter realized. He didn’t even smirk at the pun. Maybe he hadn’t even realized he’d made one. Peter’s eyes widened and he nodded.

“Okay, but…”

“You’re a good friend, Peter.” Wade nodded to himself decisively, as though confirming he was doing the right thing. “Spidey will protect you. He promised. When I get back, I’m going to beat your ass in Mario Kart!”

“Wade, wait, I”—Peter started. Wade was halfway out the window. He looked back into the dark living room, white masked eyes blinked once.

“I got a train to catch. I gotta go.”

“I—” Peter flailed a bit. His voice wasn’t working. Nothing was coming out. He could feel his lungs fluttering, that annoying sensation signaling a panic attack coming on. He swallowed it down as best he could.

Wade sighed. “I have to go.”

“Be safe,” Peter managed. “Come back home.”

Wade smirked, cocky again. “Aw, you know me, Petey. I always come back. Can’t keep me down!”

Peter smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes. He had a flash of memory of Wade’s bloodless body in the dumpster.

Then he was alone in his dark apartment.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter runs some tests on the Hand's drug and talks to Matt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Wow! Long chapter here. And long Notes.
> 
> 2\. I finally purged my LJ and moved to dreamwidth to escape the Russians and their anti-LGBTQ stuff. I have my fic masterlist posted publicly on there and a rec list that's access-locked. If you want access, just subscribe or whatever it is that you and I both have to do to enable you to view it. There will be fics on there with adult content, so click at your own risk. 
> 
> If you're on dreamwidth, let me know and friend me (or whatever it's called). I'm not that great at keeping up with communities and people -- I barely understand how to use tumblr -- but I'd love some recommendations for Marvel communities to follow. My DW is the same as my AO3. 
> 
> 3\. I made a Twitter account for fic updates, but I'm also not that great at using Twitter, so I don't know how much I'll stick to it. But feel free to say hi :) @havetaoque.
> 
> 4\. I sent in photos and info for the Avengers 4 casting call for "Japanese-looking people" because why not? Unfortunately, it's in Georgia, and I live a nice plane ride away. It's probably intended for Georgia residents. But I have nothing to lose by sending my info! I've never done anything like this before, so I have no clue if I did it right, but hey, it'd be cool to be an extra.
> 
> 5\. I had so much trouble with this chapter and I nearly scrapped it, but then I fixed it and it got longer :)

Somehow, Peter fell asleep after Wade left.

He jerked awake in a flail of limbs mere hours later, alarm clock blaring beside his bed, and hurried to get dressed for work. He slipped on his discrete webshooters, pausing to roll up the sleeves of his button down. He found that the more he showed off the webshooters, which looked like fashionable (to him, at least) leather cuffs, the less often people took notice of them. Hiding in plain sight and all that.

Peter grabbed some crepes out of the fridge and ate them on the way to work, stomach churning with guilt all the while because Wade had made these with him a couple days ago when they’d stayed up late drinking ridiculously expensive wine and learning how to use the new crepe pan Peter had purchased by mistake. Peter had had to feign being tipsy, but he was already giggling so much with their crepe efforts that it hadn’t been too difficult.

That had been a fun night.

Peter the stuffed the last crepe in his mouth and jogged the rest of the way to the Tower. He had another covert sample to analyze, after all.

JARVIS’s calm voice washed over him when he entered the elevator.

“Good morning, Mr. Parker.”

“Hi, JARVIS.”

“I’m afraid the forensics lab is quite busy today.”

Peter narrowed his eyes. “Can you identify it for me instead then?”

“I have already scanned it,” JARVIS said unnecessarily, “but from here I can only tell that it’s a liquid and likely some form of injectable drug based on the receptacle in which it’s currently contained. You’ll need access to more specific testing equipment, I’m afraid.”

“Right,” Peter muttered. He yawned.

 

Peter dropped his bag onto his desk and withdrew the vial from his lab coat pocket, rolling it around in his palm. The liquid sloshed around.

“What’s that?”

Peter snapped his hand shut. “Nothing. Uh, it’s just a sample I was asked to analyze.”

“Oh,” said Gina, smiling awkwardly. “Well, have fun, I guess?”

“Thanks,” Peter replied.

She gave him a small wave and headed toward the lab station where the other interns were setting up their equipment.

Peter mentally smacked himself. He was a terrible liar when it actually mattered, and when it was no longer necessary… He sighed, wondering how Wade’s job was going. He tried not to think about how the merc was probably stalking his target or blowing the target’s brains out while he stood at his desk like an idiot, holding the Hand’s moneymaker in plain sight and looking so guilty that apparently one of the lab interns – incompetent as they sometimes were – had noticed.

He sank down in his chair and shoved the vial under some folders in his desk drawer. He'd get a chance to examine it later that evening when the forensics lab was empty.

For the first half of the day, Peter occupied himself with developing new biotech schematics for the company. Beneath the steady flow of productivity, however, a current of unease tickled Peter’s spider sense.

Peter yanked open the drawer, needing, for some reason, to check that the vial was still where he’d placed it this morning, untouched. With the drawer open, his spider sense buzzed uncomfortably, like a fly’s wings vibrating against his skin. But the vial was just as he’d left it. Peter sighed, shut the drawer, and turned back to his work.

 

Another hour later, the schematics were blurring in front of his eyes. Peter took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, yawning, wishing himself back into bed. He hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep and none of it could exactly have been called ‘restful.’

“Mr. Parker?”

When he looked up, Angela, another one of lab interns was standing in front of his desk.

“Sorry,” Peter said, replacing his glasses and trying to look like a professional adult scientist. “I didn’t sleep very well last night. How can I help you?”

Angela smiled sympathetically. “I’m going down to the cafeteria to bring up some coffee for the others. Would you like some?”

Peter smiled. “Oh, thanks. That’d be great actually.”

“You look like you could use it,” Angela said. She smiled and headed over to Kate’s desk to get her coffee order.

Peter turned back to his work, feeling a little more awake now, the mere mention of caffeine stimulating his brain. He pulled up another window on his laptop and began going over the code for another piece of tech.

A few minutes later, the scent of coffee hit the lab. Peter sighed happily along with his fellow R&D scientists.

“Here you go, Mr. Parker.”

“You are a life saver, Angela. Thank you!” Peter said, taking the steaming cup. “How’s your project coming along?”

Angela turned back to Peter, earning her annoyed looks from the other coffee-less scientists. “Oh, it’s going really well. I’ve finally managed to isolate one of the chemical components I need to apply to my work on stem cells and cell regeneration. Gina is working on some cultures for it now.”

Peter took a sip of his coffee. “That sounds great. Will you be presenting your work at the NYU Conference next year?”

“I hope so. Paul’s started a draft for the conference abstract, but obviously we need to do more research first. How’s your dissertation coming along?”

Peter made a face. “It’s…coming. I still have three years to write it, but that’ll go by in the blink of an eye. I’ve been pretty busy with work and stuff. But the project’s solid.” He grinned. Angela smiled back politely. “I, ah, think you’re going to have an angry mob of scientists after you if you don’t finish your coffee delivery.”

“Right,” she said. “See ya.”

Peter took another sip of his coffee and went back to work.

The interns left at four and Peter’s other co-workers began wrapping up their work for the day. Peter lingered at his desk, brushing off invitations to drinks, saying he was on to something and couldn’t stop now.

The lab emptied out within the hour. Peter packed up his things, opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a stack of manila folders, vial clutched in his hand. He headed for the forensics lab.

He put the folders down at an empty desk and carried the drug vial carefully over to a clean workstation to prep for color testing and gas chromatography. JARVIS was keeping this off the books and off the security footage, so Peter moved freely around the lab.

He wasn’t doing anything particularly unusual. He often worked overtime when he had a particular stroke of genius and everyone knew to give him space when Parker was in one of his Science Zones, as the interns called it. But still. This was Hand stuff and Spiderman stuff. And the drug made him twitchy as fuck. He fumbled on a pair of gloves and picked up the vial, piercing it with a syringe, and drew some of the liquid into the chamber.

“Okay, let’s see what we have,” he said, depositing a few drops of the drug onto a ceramic plate. Taking an educated guess, Peter decided to test for heroin first and added the reagent. The drug turned purple, reacting with the sulfuric acid. Peter smiled. “Gotcha.”

But his spidey sense and his own training told him there was more to it – much more. Matt’s Madame Gao person and The Hand wouldn’t deal in anything _ordinary_. They’d be after something a bit more creative. Peter cleaned up his workstation and carried the rest of the sample over to prep for gas chromatography.

He injected a small sample of the Hand’s heroin into the gas chromatograph and watched the data feed on the monitor begin.

“JARVIS, can you get the MS going?”

“Certainly, Mr. Parker.”

 

It was pitch black outside when Peter got off the phone with Matt and finally leaned back in the chair he’d commandeered in the forensics lab. He was shocked at what he’d found and more than a little angry.

His tests had confirmed the tale Matt had gotten from the Iron Fist. The Hand had gotten their hands on ( _stop it, Parker_ , he said) or made ( _with their own hands – oh my god!_ ) a new synthetic heroin that was untraceable and resisted building up a tolerance to it. Peter had isolated some of the compounds in the drug and mentally reverse engineered it until he found the core. It all pointed to some sort of enhanced super-opioid and Peter didn’t want to imagine the chaos when, no _if_ , it hit the streets. They’d stop this. The Hand wouldn’t ( _get the upper—okay, enough, Parker!_ he groaned).

He rubbed his eyes and they felt like sandpaper. He really needed to sleep, yet he still felt jittery from the late afternoon caffeine boost. Usually the caffeine went right through him. Maybe it was drug exposure?

No, he’d been careful. Plus, any trace amount he might have come into contact with would have been metabolized too quickly to have any effect, thanks to his enhanced biology. It was all good. Everything was fine. He’s was just so --

Peter jerked his head up. He’d nodded off for a second.

“Alright, time to pack it up.” He put his things away in his backpack and stretched. He ought to skip patrol tonight and just get some sleep. Yeah, that sounded good. The fight with the Hand had taken a lot out of him, though the hours of anxiety following the fight sealed the deal.

Sleep was the solution.

Peter tugged on a hoodie over his lab coat, perfectly aware of but not giving a flying fuck about the fashion abomination he was, and left Stark Tower.

The streets were still buzzing with activity, New York waking up to its own night life. Headlights slid by in a blur and car horns wailed. Peter blinked hard to stay awake and stumbled on a bit of uneven pavement.

Someone gasped.

“Oh, sorry, excuse me,” he murmured, stepping back from the person he’d collided with. “My fault, I’m sorry.”

Peter did a double take and stared at the girl. It was Angela, the lab intern.

“Oh, hey.”

She looked just as startled as he, but she recovered quickly.

“Are you alright, Mr. Parker? Too much to drink?” she asked kindly. “I won’t say anything.”

“Uh. Yeah, yeah, probably,” Peter said haltingly, exhaustion and anxiety over the drug test results making him slow to react. “I’ve got to get home. I’ll see you at work.”

“See ya.”

Peter smiled awkwardly and continued on his way. Deciding he needed to clear his head, he ducked into an alley to change into his suit. He’d just swing around and get some fresh air. Fresh air always helped.

 

But the air wasn’t fresh anymore. Peter gasped, but filled his lungs only with dank, thick air. He shuddered and tried to expel the cloying air, but it only clung to his skin, heavy and slick like the walls of the sewers. Peter took shallow breaths and put his hand out to feel his surroundings. He couldn’t see at all and if this was what Matt saw all the time, he didn’t know how the guy managed. He stopped and went still, trying to steady his breathing until he could concentrate on something besides the thick air.

Running water. Peter could hear it dripping, trickling down, and farther off, it was churning and flowing quickly. The sounds of water drops echoed softly.

Enclosed space, then. Great. He took a few steps forward until his hand collided with something. He peeled off his glove and pressed his fingers against cold, slick stone.

Peter snatched his hand away quickly, heart hammering. He could hear the _clack_ of the Lizard’s claws, echoing off the tunnel walls, and he couldn’t keep lying to himself and feeling out his surroundings. He knew where he was.

The sounds didn’t frighten him. The Lizard was far away, probably near his sewer lab recording videos or shooting up new reptilian serums.

No, Peter was afraid of what he couldn’t see hear, what he couldn’t _sense_.

The Hand’s ninjas moved silently, save for their breathing, and Peter could hear nothing over the sound of his own blood rushing around, pounding in his ears.

The air stirred to his left. Peter threw himself to the ground and rolled away, hearing a blade shiver where he had been moments ago. A faint whisper of cloth came from behind him, but Peter did not look back to try to see. He would see nothing, he knew, and he would die in the darkness.

He ran away and would have careened straight into a wall if his spider sense had not crackled beneath his skin. Peter had never been so grateful for spider sense. Its absence against the Hand’s ninjas left him feeling bereft and frightened.

He bolted, relying on his spider sense now to feel out the twists and turns of the sewer tunnels, but his legs felt heavy, and he knew the ninjas were close behind him, though he had no sense of them. He strained to run faster, but the air grew thicker and it began to feel as though he were wading through a swamp, every movement slow, taking too much effort.

He wouldn’t make it.

The press of the tunnel walls vanished and the air cleared a bit and Peter stumbled out into an open, impossibly darker space. It was a relief to be out of the tunnels, but the openness unnerved him and he hugged his arms against his chest, feeling suddenly exposed, as though he were on display for unseen eyes. The tip of a sword pricked his shoulder blade, drawing blood, and his mask was ripped off before he could bring his hands up to stop it.

Peter heard a sharp inhale and knew Wade had seen his face somehow in the darkness.

 

“Coffee, Mr. Parker?”

Peter’s eyes snapped open and he sat up, heart beating wildly.

“Yes. Thank you,” he said, taking the offered cup. “I’m sorry, I’m really tired today.”

“I can see that,” Paul said sympathetically. “But that’s why coffee exists! It is the universal life-saver.”

“Very true,” Peter said, taking a sip with shaking hands. It scorched his throat when he swallowed, but it was a welcome replacement for the damp sewer air, still very ironically fresh in his mind from the nightmare. “How’s the project going?”

“Pretty good. Angela’s running tests in another lab, so I’m on coffee-bringing-duty.”

“Why’s she in another lab?” Peter asked. “You’ve got everything you need here, right?”

Paul blinked. “We ran out of a reagent here, so she went to biotech 2 to finish the reaction.”

“Ah, alright,” Peter said, brow creasing. He was about to go back to his coffee when Paul spoke again.

“Hey, I know you’re really busy with your new designs – which are awesome, by the way, you’re brilliant! Um. So I was wondering if you could look over my results from the sequencing I did yesterday? They don’t really look like what I hypothesized, but I can’t figure out if that’s significant, or if I fuc-messed up the test somehow.”

“Sure,” Peter said. “But maybe after I finish my coffee.”

“Right,” Paul laughed. “Thank you so much, Mr. Parker!”

Peter smiled and devoted the next five minutes to being exclusive with his caffeinated beverage.

He’d been so tired last night that he didn’t remember making it back to his apartment, but when he’d woken up, he’d been in bed in his spidey suit, drenched in a cold sweat and reeling from the nightmare. He hadn’t had one that vivid for a while – at least two months.

Interns were good for something at least, he thought. He could get behind this new coffee delivery thing.

Except he thought that the tingling he was currently feeling wasn’t from the caffeine. Peter frowned and put down the cup. He reached for it again and felt spider sense tickling his fingers. Huh. Peter glanced over at the group of interns. Paul had his back to him and was working on his laptop. The other girl was there too – Gina? And Angela was in another lab.

Which was weird, but Peter supposed that was an alright excuse. Maybe she had had an argument with her project group members and wanted distance?

Peter reached automatically for the coffee again and twitched when he felt his spider sense. It was faint, but persistent, so whatever was in it wasn’t a major threat, but pesky enough to register. Had it been in his coffee yesterday too? He must not have felt it. The Hand’s drug vial had been setting off his spider sense constantly. He might not have noticed the extra warning. Shit, what else had he missed?

Peter suppressed the sudden wave of panic. They were on to him again. He’d let his guard down too much, pulled too much of Spiderman’s world into Peter Parker’s.

But whatever drug was in his coffee hadn’t worked. He must have metabolized it too quickly for any significant effect, not that the Hand would know that. Sure, the dream had been scary, but he couldn’t pin it on the doctored coffee for certain. It may have been triggered by it, but it could also just have been delayed subconscious whatevertheheck left over from the fight in the sewers. Too many variables.

Peter reached out and tipped the coffee over, spilling it onto the floor.

“Shit,” he said, just loud enough for others to hear. He moved around his desk to grab a roll of paper towels and bent to sop it up. He caught Paul with a funny look on his face.

“Can I help?” Paul asked.

“Nah, I got it, but thanks,” Peter said. “I’m all thumbs today.”

“I can run down and get you another.”

“Oh, no don’t bother, you’ve got your own work to do,” Peter said, watching the intern carefully. “I need to grab a bagel or something anyway. I overslept a bit today. Didn’t get around to eating yet.”

Paul looked troubled, but gave in and went back to work. Peter finished cleaning up the coffee, grabbed his wallet and phone, and left the lab.

He headed to the other biotech labs and caught a glimpse of Angela in one of them. She didn’t look like she was doing a simple reaction. She was bent over a powerful microscope. Peter frowned.

Peter was almost back at the lab when he realized he’d forgotten his coffee-and-bagel alibi, so he doubled back to the cafeteria.

When he returned to the lab, Angela and Paul were in deep conversation. Peter walked to his desk like nothing was out of the ordinary. He settled in behind his laptop and then let his spider hearing out, eyes skimming over the same paragraph again and again as he listened to the interns.

They were just talking about their test results and some articles for their research. Peter sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. Maybe he was being paranoid. They were good kids with bright ideas for the future.

If Wade were here, he’d probably just go over and try to stab one of them himself to see how they reacted. Peter chuckled and shook his head. Means and ends.

Wade was due home tomorrow. Peter had that to look forward to – and also sort of dread? It was one big mess, but he’d figure something out. He listened a bit more to the interns throughout the day, and they spoke only of their lab work, TV shows, and other school-related things.

Peter slipped into biotech 2 after everyone had left for the day.

“Hey, JARVIS?”

“Yes, Mr. Parker?”

“What was Angela doing in here earlier?”

“She seemed to be testing nanoparticles.”

“Huh. Thanks, J.” Peter nodded and headed for the exit. “Why would she need nanoparticles?” he wondered aloud.

 

As he was leaving Stark Tower, his phone rang. Peter dug his phone out of his pocket and answered the call.

“Hey, Matt! I was just going to call and ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight. There’s some stuff I was hoping to discuss. I need some advice.”

“I’m always happy to dispense advice, but if it’s legal advice, you’ll have to book an appointment with Karen. We’re kind of strapped for cash at the firm,” he replied, laughing.

“Does that mean I’m paying for dinner?”

“I won’t object. But actually, I’ll be busy most of tonight. I climbed up around the Roxxon building this afternoon and overheard something about an arms shipment going down tonight.”

“Oh,” said Peter. “Should I come too?” He stopped at an intersection and waited for the light to change.

“Can’t hurt,” Matt said. “We can talk before if you want to meet up right now. But it’ll be like last time in the sewers. Are you up for it? You seemed a little shaken.”

Peter sighed. “I’ve… I’ve been having some anxiety, yeah,” he admitted. “They don’t trip my spider sense at all and I’m not used to their close-in fighting style. I mean, I didn’t get any major injuries, just some cuts and bruises, but I’ve been feeling kind of… I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Matt said. “You did a lot better than you think. If you want me to train you, I’d be happy to, but I really think you just need a little more experience and you’ll get it down. When I first went up against them, they beat me pretty bad ‘cause I couldn’t hear their heartbeats. Then I learned to listen to their breathing instead. Don’t be too hard on yourself, Spidey. You’re way more super-powered than either Wade or me, we just have more experience with this sort of fighting.”

“Thanks,” Peter said uncertainly. Matt sighed into the phone speaker.

“You _did_ do well against them. You’re just psyching yourself out. But you’ll just have to prove it to yourself, if I can’t convince you. So I guess I’ll see you tonight? At the pier.”

“I’ll be there,” Peter said. “Oh, hey—”

“Yeah?”

“I…I think the interns in my lab are working for the Hand.” Peter tugged up his hood and glanced around as he continued down the pavement.

“Shit,” Matt breathed. “Uh, let’s talk about that in person instead. I’m headed back to my apartment now to change. Meet me on the roof of the Peruvian chicken place. We can split my last paycheck.”

 

The “last paycheck” turned out to be a loaf of zucchini bread and a quart-sized mason jar of vegetable soup.

“Do you have bowls and spoons?” Peter asked, rolling up his mask. They were tucked away in the long shadow of a huge air vent unit in the middle of the rooftop.

“Oh, I knew I was forgetting something.” Matt shrugged and popped the seal on the jar. “I’m not sick and you don’t really get sick, so if you don’t mind sharing?”

Peter laughed. “That’s fine with me. I haven’t had homemade soup since… in a long time.”

Matt took a swig of soup and passed the jar to Peter. They handed it back and forth like some kind of welcoming ritual until the jar was empty. Then they split the loaf of zucchini bread.

“So, you were saying your interns are Hand members?” Matt asked, taking a bite of zucchini bread.

Peter nodded, swallowing. “I have a feeling. This is really good bread, by the way. Where’d you get it?”

“Client. She’s like ninety, I think. No money, but bakes really well. So, elaborate, please. I can do many things, but I cannot read your mind.”

So Peter told him about the odd encounters since he brought the drug vial into work and the coffee incidents.

“But you don’t feel anything now?”

“I thought it might have been messing with my head yesterday, but I can’t be sure that wasn’t just me stressing out about the sewers. I drank almost half of the coffee today before realizing something was off, but I feel fine.”

“Do you think your body metabolized the drug really fast? They don’t know you’re not a regular human.”

“That’s what I figured,” Peter said. “My spider sense went off around the coffee, but it’s not doing it now, as far as I can tell. I’ve been pretty wound up all day though, and it was faint to begin with.”

“Well, whatever was in the coffee is or was spread out through your body.”

Peter frowned. “That’s a good point. It would have been more concentrated in the cup, so stronger spidey reaction. Hmm.”

They sat in silence a while longer, finishing their zucchini bread and watching the sun set over Hell’s Kitchen.

“I’m still kind of hungry,” Peter said after a while.

“Me too.” Matt leaned back against the vent unit. “Fancy some Peruvian chicken?”

Peter got to his feet. “I’ll get it. You wait here. Then I want to ask for your advice if we still have time before the Hand moves.”

Peter leaped off the building and lowered himself to the ground on a webline in the alley behind the place and went through the back of the restaurant to place his order and pay.

When he was halfway up the wall in the alley, his spider hearing picked up something odd.

“Well it’s clearly not working,” a female voice said. Peter scuttled into the shadows and crept closer. It was Angela. And Paul.

“It is working!” Paul hissed angrily.

Angela crossed her arms. “He wasn’t there, genius.”

“You calibrated them. If it’s not working, it’s your own fucking fault!”

“Don’t blame me! You should have found a way to get him to take the rest.”

“Look, we both messed up, alright? It says he should be right _here_ and he isn’t. Maybe some of the nanotracers got on you and the signals are getting confused.”

“Maybe,” Angela admitted grudgingly. “Let’s just go home now. We can try again tomorrow. We aren’t going to get any useful information tonight since something has clearly gone wrong with the tracers.”

“The Hand comes first,” Paul said. “We report to sensei and only then do we stop for the day. This is _our_ mission, Angie.”

“Alright. Fine.”

 

A few moments later, a brown paper bag full of delicious-smelling food was placed outside the door to the restaurant in the back alley. Peter webbed it up to himself and climbed back onto the roof.

“How much of that did you hear?” Peter asked, handing Matt the chicken.

Matt ripped open the bag and began arranging the containers on the roof between them. “Enough,” he said. “Sounds like you were right about them. Nanotracers, huh?”

“I should have guessed,” Peter muttered. “JARVIS told me she had been fiddling around with nanoparticles, but I didn’t connect the dots. I thought for sure it had to be a drug. Good thing I didn’t drink all the coffee today. They think their tech is on the fritz.”

“If they’re still tracking you, maybe you should sit this one out tonight,” Matt said. “You shouldn’t be seen anywhere near the docks. They’ll make the connection between their mentor and Spiderman.”

Peter made a frustrated noise. “I have no way of knowing when all the tracers are gone, but they can’t last that long if they had to dose me with them after just one day.”

Matt tilted his head. “Maybe I can listen for them. Come over here.”

Peter slid across to Matt, mindful of the chicken containers. Matt bent his head near his stomach, listening.

“There’s…something.”

“If you make any kind of joke right now…” Peter groused.

Matt leaned back and smiled. “No joke,” he said. “But I can hear something. They’re giving off a low-level frequency, but it’s very faint. I’d say most of them are already out of your system. Why don’t you try chugging water? Or alcohol? If they gave it to you in coffee, you should be able to just pee the rest of the tracers out.”

“Oh my god,” Peter said, putting his head in his hands. “I never thought I’d hear you say something like that.”

Matt chuckled and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back, Spidey.”

 

He returned a few minutes later with a six-pack of beer and tossed it at Peter, who barely caught it before putting down his chicken container.

“If Wade were here,” Peter said, “he’d accuse you of getting me drunk to steal my virtue.”

Matt snorted. “You can’t even get drunk. What’s wrong?”

Peter sometimes hated the way Matt could sense his emotions with his stupid weird blind guy senses and devil hearing.

“It’s Wade. I think I really fucked up.”

“Well,” Matt said, sitting back down beside him and picking up his own chicken dish, “it’s a good thing I also bought this then.” He pulled out a bottle of whiskey and handed it to Peter too, taking a beer for himself.

Peter laughed sadly and took the bottle. He broke the seal and took a sip, feeling his eyes tear up, and tried not to spit it all out.

“Hey, I don’t really drink that often,” he said, when Matt laughed at him. “What’s the point if I can’t get buzzed?”

Matt took a sip of his beer and got comfortable. “I’m ready to hear your troubles, Spidey.”

Peter took another gulp of the whiskey, concentrating on the pain as it burned down his throat.

“Well…I don’t know where to start. After you left the night in the sewers, we kind of got in an argument. It was all a big misunderstanding, but I said some stuff I shouldn’t have and now Wade thinks I’m dating myself…” Peter trailed off, staring hard at the chicken in his lap. He took another sip of the whiskey and coughed.

“He got really mad and kept accusing me of not being able to keep Peter safe from the Hand and getting all angry about my involving Peter with the drug analysis, but like it’s me, and I’m able to protect myself and I am myself, so there’s no need to be upset, but he doesn’t know that and he’s going to be so pissed off when he finds out – no, he’ll be furious.

“But basically I got really mad because I was feeling pretty fucking useless and weak after the fight with the Hand, and I felt really insecure when he was implying I – Spiderman – wasn’t good enough to go up against the Hand to protect Peter. I kind of agreed with him though and I was freaking out, but I didn’t want him to tell me that to my face like that! And then I said something like ‘you’re not the only one who cares about Peter’ because I don’t know, I’m always obsessively keeping my two lives separate and it’s important to me, but I kind of fell in love with him and I can’t keep lying to him.

“I tried to tell him when he came to my apartment after the fight, but I was still in my usual habit of being Peter in my apartment around him, so when I tried to explain, he wouldn’t let me finish and just assumed I was in some kind of relationship with myself or that I had feelings for Spiderman and he left to go on his mission. And that really pissed me off when he told me in the sewers because I knew he was bringing it up to make me angry.” Peter took a deep breath and put the whiskey down.

“Wow,” Matt said. “That’s… quite a tangled web.”

“Did you just make a spider pun?” Peter asked, deadpan.

Matt grinned. “Okay, sorry, so, advice. Let’s see. Well, you have to tell him you’re in love with him. This sounds like a lot of miscommunication and…lies”—Peter cringed—“but you guys can get past this. I’d just be straightforward. When he gets back, go to see him right away, tell him everything, tell him how you feel.”

Peter exhaled loudly. He picked up a beer bottle and took a long sip. “I knew you’d tell me to confess.”

“Well, old habits and sacraments and such,” Matt said, spreading is hands, as if to say, “what did you expect?”

“I think I need to find a bathroom,” Peter said suddenly, standing up. “Ah, yeah. I’ll be right back.”

While Peter went to pee out the last of the tracers, Matt cleared up their impromptu rooftop picnic in the dying light and waited for Peter to return.

“How do I sound?” Peter asked. Matt bend his head to Peter’s abdomen again and listened.

“Nothing. You’re good, I think.”

“Awesome. So when I tell Wade what’s actually going on, what if he, I don’t know, what if he storms off or shoots himself or something? I’ve been lying to him for months. He’s going to feel manipulated, like I’ve played him. I’ve been so hot and cold lately as Peter and Spidey.”

“Well, you’ll have to be prepared for that too, I guess. He has every right to be angry.”

“I know.” Peter sighed. “I’m afraid he’ll never trust me again.”

Matt laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll all work out—hang on, I hear something.”

He tilted his head, listening carefully. Peter listened hard too, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be hearing.

Matt straightened. “Someone’s moved a manhole cover on 11th and 41st from beneath the street.”

“How can you tell all that?” Peter mumbled under his breath. Matt heard him, of course.

“Let’s go.”

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Matt go up against the Hand. Wade comes home.

A cool breeze drifted off the water by the pier. Peter was visibly relieved at the prospect of engaging the Hand in the open or in the warehouse. Anything but the sewers. He crawled on top of a steel shipping box and pressed himself flat against the top, watching the activity by the waterfront.

Somewhere on his right, Daredevil was creeping forward. Peter could barely see him in the thick shadows cast by the warehouse.

He wondered what Wade was doing right now. He should be back sometime tomorrow and then Peter would tell him everything. Peter heard a dull thump off to his right and saw Matt walking away from a ninja who lay concussed on the concrete.

Right, he needed to stay focused. He would stress about Wade once he wasn’t within killing range of the Hand.

Matt had said he just needed more practice, that he hadn’t been a complete failure in the last fight. Maybe he was right, Peter thought. He just needed to get his head on straight and concentrate. He’d fought slews of supervillains and doombots before. He’d taken on the Rhino and Otto and Venom and even Harry who…No, he couldn’t continue that line of thought. Peter steeled himself and closed his eyes, reaching for that part of himself from before, from before he’d lost his confidence and before the night terrors and panic attacks. He could do this. He was Spiderman. He’d make Wade proud and apologize and fix things between them. He’d do it for them.

Peter stood up, silhouetted in the moonlight and looked down on the Hand’s ninjas as they crept from the shadows to face the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. These ninjas were shadows swathed in dark cloth. They belonged to the night, but they didn’t belong in his city. Peter took a deep breath. The Devil wasn’t alone tonight.

 

The first web hit a ninja in the face, propelling him backward into a pile of wooden crates. Peter leaped up, sticking to the side of a steel beam, and webbed two more ninjas to the ground with a satisfying _thwip_. They immediately began cutting away at the web, but Peter webbed their hands to their feet and Matt kicked them both over in a heap.

“Nice job, Spidey,” he called.

“Thanks.” Peter sauntered over to the ninjas on the ground as they rolled around in vain. “You look a little tied up,” he said. “I’ll just come back later!”

Peter turned away and inhaled, letting it out slowly. A sword was headed his way. He heard the _swish_ of the backswing and rolled beneath the stroke. He pivoted and dove in close, catching the ninja’s sword hand and brought his fist down on the ninja’s elbow. The sword clattered to the ground.

Three more came at him. The first leapt into the air, and Peter shot a web at the ninja’s face. But before the webbing found its mark, it was sliced in half by the sword and the strands of web went wide and fluttered to the ground like silk.

“Holy shit,” Peter said. He flung himself to the side, narrowly missing the web-slicing sword and careened into straight another ninja’s chest. They both went down, the wind knocked out of them for a moment.

The third ninja drew a knife and thrust it toward his neck, but Peter batted the hand away easily with his superior strength and swung his leg out, shattering bone. The ninja stumbled back. The ninja he’d fallen with reached for his knife, but Peter grappled with him and they rolled over and over on the ground until Peter managed to grab both of the ninja’s wrists and squeeze until he felt bone grinding against bone.

“Hey,” he said. “Did anyone ever tell you that stabbing people isn’t a good way to introduce yourself?”

Peter kicked him away and the ninja sagged on the ground, wrists broken. Peter shot to his feet and snatched up the knife on the ground. A ninja was coming up behind Matt, so Peter adjusted his grip on the hilt of the knife and threw it, pinning the ninja to the wall by the ends of the sash at his waist. The ninja jerked back at the sudden restraint and received a face full of Matt’s fists.

Peter flexed his hands and looked at the ninja whose wrists he’d broken. He felt a bit guilty with all this bone-breaking, but these weren’t your typical street thugs. They stole blood from people and trafficked humans and created super-opioids to control entire populations.

The ninja glared back at Peter and clambered to his feet again, cradling his wrists, but still looked like he wanted to fight. There was a manic gleam in his eyes that made Peter take an involuntary step back. He hadn’t really stopped to look into their eyes all that much before, too focused on the sounds of their weapons and clothing and the direction of their gazes.

“Sorry about your wrist,” Peter said, “but I think you can handle it. You’re the Hand, after all, aren’t you?”

The ninja charged him and Peter laid him flat on his back with one foot.

“Guess you don’t like puns.”

Oh, confidence felt nice.  

He turned to look over his shoulder and spotted Matt amidst a ring of Hand ninjas, slowly taking them down. Matt was a sight when he fought, a blur of dark red, devil horns flashing in the moonlight, and ninjas dropping all around him as though finally bowing down to his prowess. Peter smiled, proud of his friend. Time to assist.

He ran toward Matt, shooting down anyone in his path with volleys of webbing to the face and hands. They dropped like flies, but Peter darted past them and began webbing up the ninjas in the outer ring around Matt.

He leapt from crate to crate, spinning webs until the ninjas were hemmed in, according to the plan. Matt was still kicking ass in the center of the throng. Peter saw a ninja go down, blood spurting from his nose, and another after a rapid-fire exchange of punches. Peter reinforced his web to make it harder to cut through and dropped down into the center of the ring at Matt’s back. Together they took down the remaining few.

Matt had said the ninjas had a habit of vanishing into the night after a fight, so Peter had taken care of that with a makeshift web blockade, spun among the big steel shipping crates and the wall of the warehouse. Peter began webbing individual ninjas to the ground, hands behind their backs, swords confiscated. They had a grand total of nine ninjas in their web.

Peter climbed up the side of the warehouse and stuck to it while he caught his breath. He’d done well. He’d actually done really well. Open air fighting was his forte. He preferred having room to move around where he could use his web-slinging to his advantage. No more pitch black sewers if he could help it, he thought, but if it comes to that, he’d still be ready. He’d train a bit with Matt and Wade, perhaps.

Matt hauled one ninjas up by his shoulders and slammed him down again on the concrete. Right, interrogation time. Peter looked away, out at the water in the harbor, rippling quietly, the night silent once again.

“You can go now, if you want, Spidey. I’ll take it from here.”

“Okay,” Peter said, relieved. “Call me if you need me.”

Matt grunted and turned back to the ninja before him. Peter was very glad that Matt was his friend. He’d hate to be on the other side of a questioning by Daredevil.

 

He took a circuitous route home, not putting it past the Hand to follow him back, and finally landed on a roof a few blocks from his building to change into his street clothes. His blood was still rushing around his limbs from the fight. He felt so alive.

He dumped his backpack on the kitchen table and pulled off his spidey suit as quickly as he could, sticking it in the hamper, and headed for the shower.

The hot water from the shower went a long way to relaxing his muscles. Peter stood under the spray, letting it pound against his back and shoulders, and closed his eyes. He’d tell Wade the truth soon, and if things worked out like he hoped, then maybe…

Peter reached down to wrap a hand around his cock and sighed, picturing Wade standing behind him, pressing his lips against his shoulder, fingers digging into his hips. Peter moaned softly and leaned against the cold tiles, head tipped back. He stroked a hand up his chest and wrapped his fingers around his neck, thumb digging into his pulse, making his gasp.

He thought about the night he and Wade had fallen asleep on the couch. They’d been sitting side by side before, empty popcorn bowl between them, but when Peter had jerked awake to the sound of his alarm clock blaring in his bedroom, he’d been lying on a very warm couch cushion that rose and fell in steady breaths. Wade was always warm. When he moved to get up, the arms around him tightened. He’d hated having to slip away from the warm circle of Wade’s arms.

Peter jerked himself faster, thinking of Wade’s body pressed against his own, remembering the way his chest had felt beneath his cheek, the beat of his heart, the firm muscles of his thighs, and the press of his half-hard cock against Peter’s stomach. What he’d give to have that every day.

Peter would never lie to him again. He’d hold him close and kiss him, press his tongue into Wade’s hot mouth, stroke against him and suck on his tongue until he moaned. He wanted to trace the ridges of scar tissue on his cock, show Wade that he was sorry, so sorry for everything. Maybe Wade would still be angry and would hold his head still as he fucked his mouth. Peter wouldn’t mind that. He panted in the steam of the shower, groaning at the thought and spilled over his fist.

His head hit the tiles with a _thunk_ and took a series of deep breaths. The shower water was starting to turn cool, so Peter grabbed his body wash and scrubbed away the sweat and blood from the fight at the docks – the fight where he finally kicked some ninja ass.

When he kicked open the bathroom door, there was, thankfully, no severed head belonging to the man he loved rolling across his living room floor this time. That would have seriously killed his good mood. Peter toweled off and tugged on his softest t-shirt and a clean pair of boxers. He fell into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

 

Whispered footsteps glided over hardwood flooring, stepping carefully to feel out any creaking areas that might give them away. They moved among the shadows, wrapping them around themselves like a second skin, and proceeded toward the bedroom where the slow, even breaths of Spiderman were audible.

He hadn’t been much of a threat before, but tonight something had clearly changed and that called for a change on their part.

His abilities were great. How much greater could the Hand become if they could scale walls without ropes and gain superior strength? Nobu would welcome this, especially after the blood of the undying one had been lost to them – at the hands of this enemy, no less.

 

Peter’s eyes shot open in the dark. There was someone in his room. A rustle of cloth on his left. A strange smell.

A rag was pressed to his face. He tried to shout but he only inhaled a chemical. He managed to identify it as chloroform before the world became even darker.

And then nothing.

 

The Hand worked quickly. One tied a tourniquet around the Spider’s upper arm and flicked his skin until she felt a vein. She withdrew an alcohol swab.

“Just cut him and be done.”

The woman glared. “He isn’t a regular human. We can’t risk any contamination to his blood.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Fine. You’re the doctor.”

“I am. Now stop hovering and let me do my job.”

She filled vial after vial. The man’s heart beat on steadily, pumping his lifeblood away. When the Hand had collected enough, she withdrew the needle.

“Put pressure on that.”

The other ninja didn’t move. “Why? We don’t need him anymore.”

She shook herself. “Sorry. Habits. I could draw blood in my sleep.” She looked troubled for a moment.

“This is to help the Hand, and besides, the Hand comes first – before ourselves, before any oath you took. It’s a worthy cause, you should be proud. We are lucky to have you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course, you’re absolutely right. The Hand comes first.”

The man in the bed began to stir.

“He shouldn’t be awake so soon,” the man said.

“He must have a healing factor. Extraordinary. I wish we could take him to study. The things I could create…”

The man shook his head and unsheathed a dagger. “We were instructed to take his blood and eliminate him, not keep him for your own curiosity.”

“Give me the dagger.”

“What?”

“Give me the dagger. I want to do it.”

He handed it over, frowning. “Make it count. I’ll be waiting outside.”

 

Everything was fuzzy. Peter groaned, feeling lightheaded.

Then pain ripped through his abdomen. Peter screamed and tried to twist away, but something was inside him, cold and cutting, and he couldn’t drag himself away from the fog that enveloped his senses.

He felt it shearing through his insides and went still, eyes wide and straining in the darkness. The knife came out with a squelching sound and Peter wanted to vomit from the pain. He caught a blurry glimpse of a hooded figure in black and then he was alone in his room again, his ragged gasping the only sound.

“Oh my god,” he said. His healing factor was fighting off the lasts bits of the chloroform and he could think clearly again. He pressed his fingers to the edge of the wound and hissed in pain. His arm hurt too. Peter felt along his skin until his fingers brushed over a tender spot. They’d taken his blood.

It had to be the Hand. No one else failed to trip his spider sense.

Peter felt his heart rate picking up, heart banging against his ribcage in panic. Lungs seizing, he fought back tears and tried to control his panic. He couldn’t have a panic attack now. Needed to control his body, slow his breathing, slow his heart. Peter clenched his fists hard at his side and forced his body to relax. The muscles of his abdomen were on fire, so he concentrated on the pain.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Then he was breathing normally again.

“Okay, Parker, let’s think this through. You’ve been stabbed. You’re losing blood.” He grabbed the sheets around him and wadded them in his hands to press against the wound.

“Pressure on the wound. Need to elevate legs.” But there wasn’t anything for him to prop his legs up with. Peter yanked the pillow from behind his head, but the movement sent a wave of dizzying pain through him and he knew he wouldn’t be able to get it under his legs.

He began to shake and he shut his eyes. _I’m going into shock_ , he thought. _I need help_.

He turned his head in the darkness. His phone was in the kitchen, too far away. He couldn’t sit up, there was no way he could drag himself out there. Where were his web shooters? He could use them as makeshift stitches to at least hold the wound closed.

 _Left them in my backpack_.

Peter sank back against the mattress. Stomach wounds were slow deaths, he knew. He had time, if he could just ---

The burner phone. Peter’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness now and he frantically flung his arm out toward his night table. Wade’s burner phone was in the top drawer.

He reached for it, clawing at the mattress as he dragged himself closer. The movement pulled at his wound and he nearly blacked out from the pain. The shaking was getting worse and he could feel his heart struggling against the blood loss.

Peter managed another trembling breath and touched the edge of the phone with his fingertip. It was enough and it stuck. He pulled it toward him and flipped it open to find the only number in the contacts and punched the call button.

 

The streets were mostly empty at this time of night and that was how Wade preferred it. Fewer people around to stare at his suit or at his scars if he weren’t dressed for work. He’d go to one of his safe houses before checking in on Peter tomorrow.

The mission had gone well. Argentina was lovely this time of year. The heat wasn’t his favorite, as it irritated his skin, but the food and the machine guns and the sweet sweet smell of C4 explosives and the sound of crashing helicopters in the jungle -- beautiful. It was just the little holiday getaway he’d needed to blow off some steam after his fight with Spidey. Admittedly, he felt a bit bad for bringing up a job so bluntly like that, knowing it would hurt him, but damnit, he was jealous.

He wouldn’t win if it came down to a choice between Spidey and himself. And that knowledge _hurt_ because what had Spidey done to deserve Peter’s affection? Wade spent a great deal of time with Peter and never once saw Spidey come around. And if he and Peter were really…why would Peter behave the way he did around Wade? It was fucking confusing, that’s what it was.

Maybe they were so close that they were the type of friends ( _or lovers_ , _shut up_ ) that didn’t need to be around each other constantly, but could immediately pick up as though no time had passed. But Peter never talked much about Spidey, except to say that he trusted him completely to protect him. Maybe he just didn’t want to hurt Wade by talking about him? It’s not like Wade would really want to hear about it. At first, yeah, he had had a huge crush on the wall-crawler, but then he met Peter. And Peter was…

His phone rang, blaring _All the Single Ladies_ loudly in the alley. Wade fished it out of a pouch on his utility belt and froze. The burner phone number was blinking on the screen. He accepted the call with shaking hands and held the phone against his ear.

“Petey?”

Ragged breaths came over the phone.

“Peter! What’s wrong! What’s happened?”

“Stabbed. Going into shock. No hospitals. Wade…”

“Hang on, Peter, I’m on my way. Call 911.”

“No hospitals. They’re in there.”

“The Hand? Of course. Of fucking course they are. Stay with me, baby boy. I’m coming. What do you need?”

Peter was quiet on the line for a moment and Wade gripped the edge of a dumpster until it bent under his hand. “Peter!”

“Epinephrine. Fuck. Wade I can’t--”

“Peter? PETER!” No response. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Fuck! I’m on my way, baby boy. I’m coming.”

He took off at the run through the city, heading for Peter’s.

He flicked through his contacts, grunting in pain when he ran into a sign post.

“Matt!”

“Wade? What is it?”

“Peter’s been stabbed by the Hand. And they’re in the hospitals too. He won’t be safe there. Can you meet me there? You don’t live far away.”

Matt hissed in pain. “They came for me too. I –ahh—Claire’s patching me up, but I can’t get over there tonight. I’m sorry. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. Fuck, I don’t know.”

Wade heard another voice over the phone cursing the Hand and then Claire was speaking.

“Wade? Wade? What did Peter tell you?”

“He…he said he’d been stabbed. That he was going into shock. Something about epi… episomething.”

“Epinephrine. Okay, that’s good. That’ll help his heart deal with the blood loss. How long ago did you talk to him?”

“I just got off the phone with him. He stopped responding. …Is he dead?”

“He’s probably unconscious. Wade, when you get to him, don’t panic, okay? You said he helps Spiderman sometimes and he’s a scientist, so I’m sure he knows basic first aid and will have tried to stop the bleeding. Matt says he’s good in a crisis. It’s going to be okay. Now here’s what you need to do.”

 

“This is a hold up!”

“What the fuck?”

“I need epinephrine, strong painkillers, stuff for gaping wounds.”

“You can’t just do this! Okay, okay, okay.”

Wade pressed a gun to the man’s head while he gathered things into a large plastic bag.

“Here’s the disinfectant, bandages, painkillers, sutures, epinephrine – don’t mix it with Tylenol, okay?”

“Thanks,” Wade said. He slapped a stack of cash on the clinic counter. “I won’t forget your help.”

The man whimpered. “Just go away, please.”

 

Wade tumbled in through Peter’s living room window and dashed to the bedroom, flicking on the lights. Peter lay on his back, phone by his head. He wasn’t moving.

“Please, please be okay,” Wade said, coming closer. He dropped his duffel bag by the side of the bed, guns rattling loudly, and pressed his fingers against Peter’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

“Thank god,” Wade sighed. It was faint, but he could feel it.

Wade withdrew the bag from the clinic and spread out the contents on the bed. He tore off his gloves with his teeth and went to the bathroom to wash his hands. When he returned he took another deep breath and unwrapped the epinephrine injection.

“You better come back to me, Peter.”

He stabbed it into Peter’s thigh.

“Petey?”

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade cares for Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some fluffy relief from that cliff I left you guys on last time.

Wade put the empty syringe on the night table and sat back on his heels. Peter’s heart rate had picked up, but he still wasn’t moving aside from the thankfully more visible rise and fall of his chest. Wade gently lifted the wadded up sheets lying atop Peter’s stomach to assess the damage. It looked like the bleeding had stopped, which was a relief, but upon closer look, the edges of the wound were ragged, as though Peter had tried to wriggle away, and his exposed insides were shiny with blood. Wade couldn’t tell if the knife had had anything on it – if it were him, he wouldn’t worry, but Peter could get an infection.

He’d have to flush it with a saline solution first. It would sting, but probably hurt no less than it already did. Might as well do it while Peter was still out.

Wade pulled a knife from his boot and cut Peter’s t-shirt off him. Then he rummaged through the pile of things taken from the emergency clinic until he found what he needed. He wasn’t an expert at this by any means, but he’d seen enough emergency medical treatment in the field when he had been in the military, and right now, he was the best chance at survival that Peter had. The Hand had fingers in a lot of pies, including most of the city’s hospitals.

Wade filled a syringe with saline solution and began to pump it gently over the surface of the wound. He took a deep breath to steady himself.

Peter’s arm twitched and before Wade could look up, he found himself flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him.

“Holy shit, Petey,” he gasped and sat up. “Was not expecting that. You pack a hell of a punch for a little guy.”

Peter sat up in bed, eyes wild, panting. He lowered his fist when he spotted Wade on the floor and then blanched when he saw his stomach slashed open, blood beginning to ooze again.

“Oh, I feel like shit,” he muttered, and collapsed onto the bed again.

Wade chuckled, but his eyes stung with tears of relief. “Guess I had that coming to me. Payback, am I right?”

“Payback for what?” Peter mumbled, face pinched in pain.

“For when we first met.”

Peter frowned.

“You reattached my arm and I punched you across your living room.” Wade sat on the edge of the bed and readjusted his grip on the syringe, which had thankfully not landed on the floor.

“Right,” Peter said. He closed his eyes. “Thanks for coming. I’m really glad you’re here with me.”

“Hey, baby boy, don’t go to sleep on me. You gotta stay awake.”

“I’m not concussed, I’ve been stabbed,” Peter said, weakly waving his predicament away. “Plus if you’re going to sew me up, I think I’d rather you knock me out.”

Wade shrugged and turned back toward the wound. “Okay. I just…I thought I lost you.”

Peter blinked and sighed. “Ah, I’ll stay awake then. I thought… I thought I might not make it too, and then I’d never see you or get to tell you that I – FUCK. WADE.”

“Breathe, Petey, breathe. Geez, you’ve got a mouth like a sailor when you’ve been stabbed. Oh, I have just the thing! Here, hold this up.” He thrust the syringe into Peter’s hand and grabbed the bottle of painkillers from his stash, twisting off the cap easily in his large hands.

“Trade ya.” Wade took the syringe back and handed Peter some painkillers and a glass of water.

“Where’d you get the narcotics?” Peter mumbled, swallowing one down.

“Held up a clinic.”

“What?” Peter laughed and then moaned in pain. “Ahh. Of course. I appreciate it.”

Wade set the bottle on the night stand and went back to cleaning the wound.

Peter exhaled slowly as the horrible pain faded to a dull ache and his heart beat normally. Thank god for healing factors, Peter thought. Without it, he likely would have died before Wade showed up. Not only had his body been struggling to function with a gaping wound, but it had also had to cope without however much blood the Hand had siphoned off when he’d been knocked out.

And wasn’t that just one more problem he didn’t want to think about? His blood tended not to mix well with others’ – take Harry’s for instance – or rather, don’t, Peter thought, blocking out images of – yeah. Better to just not.

It wasn’t as though the Hand had the same goblin disease, but who knew how it might affect them? It wouldn’t give them spider powers since his father had keyed it only to his DNA, but it might cause some other nasty mutation.

He should have seen it coming –- if only he’d -- should have – Matt’s voice echoed in his head, telling him he did well, that he was improving, something about zucchini bread on the roof and manhole covers. Peter giggled. Zucchini was a funny word.

Wasn’t there something he needed to tell Wade?

Peter felt a series of little pinches and glanced down, watching Wade drawing a needle back and forth. Was he sewing? He didn’t know Wade could sew. Well, he must have made his suit, so Peter guessed sewing was probably on the superhero curriculum. It was a basic life skill. Peter liked sewing. He once sewed his pockets shut on his favorite pair of jeans and cried and Aunt May had come to the rescue with her seam ripper – what a cool name for a tool! – and ripped all the stitches out and saved his pockets! She was the savior of pockets! And Peter could put his hands back in them again and pockets were amazing.

Peter loved pockets. He loved a lot of things, like swinging through the city at night and eating tacos upside down and sassing bad guys and making bad puns. And all the things he loved were just so so much better when he had someone to share them with. Superheroing was a lonely job sometimes, but Deadpool was sometimes there. And Deadpool was with him a lot more now, but they weren’t running around on rooftops? Why was that…couches, there were couches. He sat with Wade a lot on the couch and they watched movies and didn’t talk about swinging from webs. He liked sitting on Wade on couches.

Was that what he needed to tell him? Probably.

“I really really love couches, Wade.”

Wade chuckled and continued stitching Peter up, trying to keep the stitches as even as possible. “I’ll take you to Ikea sometime and we can sit on all the couches and eat all the meatballs, Petey.”

Peter narrowed his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Ikea enslaves people with their meatballs. It is known.”

“It is known,” Wade agreed. “I’m almost done here, Petey-pie. Gonna bandage you up. I’ll need you to sit up for that. Think you can manage that? How’s your pain level?”

So many questions at once. Peter smiled softly. The ceiling was dirty. Were those footprints? What a funny place for footprints, Peter thought.

“Peter?”

“Huh?”

“Are you in any pain?”

“Nah, feel floaty. My stomach hurts a little though.”

There were gentle hands on his back and shoulders, guiding him into a sitting position. Peter leaned into the arms wrapped around him and pressed his face into a warm neck. He licked the sliver of skin there. It tasted nice, so he did it again.

“Down boy,” Wade said, laughing. “You’ll get me all hot and bothered if you keep that up, and I’m too much of a gentleman to take advantage of you when you’re all doped up like this. Though you are unbelievably cute.” He ran a finger down Peter’s nose.

Peter grinned back and kissed his cheek. “I love you Wade.”

Oh, was that the thing? Peter smiled again and sighed happily. “I love you so much.”

Yeah, that the thing!

Wade smiled tightly and looked down at the bloody bedsheets. “I love you too, Peter,” he whispered.

He let out a shaky breath and reached for the gauze and bandages. “I’m going to bind your wound now okay. Can you put your arms around my neck?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, wrapping his arms clumsily around Wade. He pressed his face against his shoulder and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

Wade pressed the gauze against the neatly sutured wound and began wrapping Peter’s torso in long, white bandages. “You’re gonna look like a baby butterfly, all cocooned in silk when I’m done, baby boy.”

“Moth.”

“Huh?”

“Butterflies make chrysalises and get all soupy inside. Moths make silk. And so do spiders. And me.”

“And you?” Wade huffed a laugh and wrapped Peter in another layer of bandages.

“Yeah, I’m Spiderman.”

Wade jerked the bandage in surprise.

“Ow. Fuck.”

“Sorry, Pete.”

“S’okay.” Peter continued rambling on about moths and metamorphosis.

“Trust you to still be a science nerd when you’re high as fuck,” Wade said. He secured the bandages and slapped one of his Hello Kitty band aids on Peter’s front as a sign of his awesome doctoring skills.

He guided Peter to lie on his back again. Peter fell asleep almost instantly.

The apartment was silent now. Wade gathered up the crusty bloodied sheets and bedding, carefully lifting Peter out of the way. Peter didn’t stir. Wade piled the sheets up by the living room window. He’d burn them when he got the chance. They were beyond a good wash and he figured Peter wouldn’t want any reminders of this decidedly traumatic experience.

He checked on Peter once more before settling on the couch in the living room to process everything. He shouldn’t have taken that job, especially when he knew Peter might vulnerable while in possession of the Hand’s drug. He’d just been feeling so angry after the fight in the sewers and getting far away from Spiderman had seemed like a good idea, but not if it cost him Peter.

But it didn’t, he thought with a sigh of relief. Peter was alive, sleeping in the next room. But he could have easily died. It was a fucking miracle that he survived long enough for Wade to make it back. But this could have been avoided if Spiderman had kept his promise.

Where was Spidey anyway? He should be here, caring for Peter. He promised he would protect him when Wade was away.

But he shouldn’t have left in the first place. Wade put his head in his hands. Was this all his fault? He knew Spidey had been having trouble with the Hand. He’d done well enough, but without his spider sense… Wade wanted to punch something. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Peter always told him he shouldn’t internalize everything and view it as his fault. Peter made him feel worthy of actual good things. No, it wasn’t his fault. Spidey had made a promise. Wade trusted Spidey. Spidey had broken his promise. This was on Spiderman.

Spiderman was a shit boyfriend, Wade decided. Or not-boyfriend, but whatever.

Damn, it had hurt when Peter had said “I’m Spiderman.” Before, yeah, Wade would have thought that anyone would be proud to be Spiderman, but not now. Petey was better and deserved better.

Well, he’d find Spiderman and they would be having a chat. With guns and fists.

Resolved in his new course of action – along with some revenge on the Hand for touching his baby boy – Wade took stock of himself and settled on three things: one, he needed a shower; two, he needed to sleep; three, he needed to go to the store and buy some ingredients. If he couldn’t win Peter’s heart, he could, at the very least, give him earth-shatteringly orgasmic recovery food.

Yeah.

Wade wasn’t about to leave Peter unguarded though, especially since the sun wasn’t up yet, so he fished a change of clothes out of his duffle bag – a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of joggers – and headed for Peter’s shower.

 

“Thanks for coming,” Wade said, opening the door. Matt walked in, cane tucked up under his arm, and smiled. His hair was a little mussed and his cardigan bunched slightly around his shoulder where it probably concealed a bandage.

“No problem,” he said. He propped his cane against the wall by the door and followed Wade stiffly to Peter’s bedroom.

“How are you holding up?” Wade asked, nodding at Matt’s slight limp.

“I’ve been better. How’s he doing?”

“Okay, from what I can tell.” Wade stepped into the room and stood off to the side while Matt sat on the edge of Peter’s bed. “I cleaned his wound and stitched him up and everything. He woke up after I shot him up with that stuff and seemed to be doing alright, just in some pain, so I gave him some oxycodone.”

Matt nodded. He laid a hand on Peter’s arm and squeezed gently. “Hey, Peter.”

Little huffs of air were the only response. Matt pressed his ear against Peter’s chest and listened for a moment.

“Everything sounds okay to me,” he said, sitting up. “The wound is healing nicely and his body’s replaced all the blood it lost.”

Wade shuddered. “It still freaks me out how you can hear all that.”

Matt gave him a sly grin. He patted Peter’s arm again and made to get up, but paused for a moment, brow creased in thought. He ran his fingertips lightly over the inside of Peter’s elbow.

“What is it?” Wade asked. “Is there something else?”

Matt withdrew his hand and stood. “No. Though I am wondering why the Hand didn’t kill him.”

“They fucking tried to,” Wade said, crossing his arms.

“Did they? They stabbed him in the stomach. You know that’s not a clean kill. They also missed most of his vital organs.”

“So what are you saying, that this was just a warning?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe someone wants to keep him alive for whatever reason.”

Wade blew out a breath and scrubbed at his face. His scars were itching. His Petey was injured.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, pulling on a hoodie with quick angry movements. “Either way I’m going to hunt them all down and kill them. No more Mister Non-Lethal. They crossed a fucking line.”

He went into the living room to retrieve his wallet from his bag. “I’m going to run to the store and get some stuff for Peter. I’ll be back soon. Keep an eye on him, yeah?”

“No can do,” Matt replied sarcastically from Peter’s bedroom.

Wade stuck his tongue out at him, knowing he couldn’t see it, but also knowing that he knew exactly what he’d just done. “See you, DD.”

 

Wade tugged his hood firmly over his worn baseball cap and walked into the grocery store in search of ingredients. It was 6:00 AM and the place was deserted except for the employees restocking the shelves and two old women gossiping in the cracker aisle.

Wade got a cart and pushed it toward the produce section, tossing in carrots and celery and onions as he went. He snatched up some herbs and things, stopping to giggle at a dick-and-balls-shaped ginger root before dropping it into the cart.

Wade bypassed the meat counter in favor of the pre-packaged meat section in order to avoid the disgusted looks of the workers who weighed and wrapped the raw meat. Nobody wanted to start their day by seeing this week’s Half-Off Ground Beef Special walking around in a baseball cap.

Wade selected a few nice Cornish hens because the name sounded cute and they also practically fit into the palm of his hand, which was also cute.

He did a quick sweep of the other aisles, grabbing a bottle of olive oil, some butter, eggs, milk, and Deadpool® pancake mix. Peter’s fridge was practically empty. Also, every house should have a box of Deadpool® pancake mix. Wade snatched up some fruit too. He might have an atrocious diet on the best of days, but he _could_ actually cook, and Petey needed his vitamins to recover, _and_ Petey was always whining about how he couldn’t cook for shit and was still stuck eating instant noodles like a broke undergrad. (“And I’m twenty-five! I make money from an actual job! But I can’t cook anything except toast and noodles and the toaster is broken. Wade please make me food.”)

Wade smiled to himself and headed for the checkout.

 

He cut off a ninja’s hand on the way back to Peter’s apartment without losing his grip on the grocery bags and felt a little better.

 

“Honey, I’m home!” Wade called, kicking the door closed behind him. He dropped Peter’s keys in the bowl by the door and headed for the kitchen. Matt emerged from Peter’s room to help him unload the groceries.

“How’s Peter doing?” Wade asked, setting the Cornish hens on the counter and giving them little pats on their firm chests.

“He woke up not too long ago in pain. I gave him some more painkillers and he’s sleeping now. What are you going to make?”

“Chicken soup for the stabbed soul,” Wade replied. He opened the refrigerator and put away the dairy products.

“Ah, always a hit.”

“You’re welcome to have some when it’s done,” Wade offered. He pulled his hoodie and hat off and tossed them onto the couch. “You fit the criterion.”

“Thanks. I have to head into work soon, but I’ll stop by afterwards to check on you guys. Oh, and I think Peter needs his dressings changed soon. And, uh, maybe take him to the bathroom at some point. I can watch him the day after tomorrow if you have things you need to do. You should rest a bit yourself. You just got home from a mission.”

Wade flushed a faint shade of scarlet beneath his scars. “Uh, yeah. Okay. Thanks, Matt.”

Matt gave him a little nod and took his cane as he left for work.

Once Matt was gone, Wade sighed and sagged against the kitchen counter. He dropped his head, chin resting against his chest, and stared at the row of little Cornish hens by the sink.

“What do you guys think about all this?”

The hens didn’t respond.

“Spiderman should be here, doing that stuff for him. Petey wouldn’t want me to touch him like that.”

The hen on the right sat up, looking at him somehow, despite being headless. “Peter said he loves you. He wouldn’t mind you helping him.”

“Peter was higher than the International Space Station when he said that,” Wade argued.

One of the other hens swiveled around and folded its little wings on its thighs. “Boy, you gotta stop doubting yourself. It’s obvious Peter loves you.”

Wade pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said tentatively. “It’s just…how could he? If he could see me…”

“You haven’t given him a chance. You’re just assuming,” said the third hen.

“True, but… Well, what do you think, fourth Cornish hen?”

“I think you should shut your fucking mouth and get your dumb ass started on Peter’s soup, that’s what I think.”

Wade did a double take. “Blind Al?”

The hens were silent.

“That was weird. I am officially freaked out.” Wade shook himself and went in search of a knife and a cutting board.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is recovering rapidly. Wade makes a decision.

The chicken soup simmered quietly in the pot – the pot Wade had had to go out and buy since Peter owned exactly one small saucepan, half a baking sheet (how? Wade thought), and that crepe pan. Wade leaned against the counter, idly flipping the kitchen knives in an attempt at juggling.

There was a thump from the bedroom and a slurred exclamation that startled Wade out of his reverie. He put the knives down and headed for Peter’s room, grabbing his mask off the couch on the way.

Peter was lying on his back in the bed, rubbing his eyes. His expression was pinched when he flopped his head around to face the doorway.

“Hey,” he mumbled, smiling drowsily. Wade’s breath caught in his throat. Oh, how he’d love to see Peter look at him like that when he wasn’t bedridden after being stabbed in the gut. The thought of the attack made his insides twist in anger and he took a deep breath before replying.

“How are you feeling?” Wade asked, stepping closer as he quickly tugged on his gloves.

“Gotta pee really bad,” Peter said. He started to sit up.

Wade lunged for him. “Oh, hey, hey, baby boy, take it slow. Are you sure you should be moving?”

Peter froze up in pain, gasping for breath. Wade rubbed his back uncertainly.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just moved a little too fast.” He turned to his side and pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Okay. I’m good. Can I have…”

“These?” Wade held up the painkillers. Peter nodded and Wade uncapped the bottle and dropped one into his outstretched hand. Wade pressed a glass of water into his hand and Peter swallowed the pill down.

“Better?”

“Yeah. I’ll just uh, I’ll be right back.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got unsteadily to his feet. Wade hovered anxiously by his side and tugged Peter’s arm over his shoulder when Peter swayed.

“Do you, um, do you need help? With…”

“I think I can manage,” Peter said, blushing. “Maybe just wait outside?”

“Sure thing, baby boy. Call if you need me.”

Peter made it to the bathroom, mostly on his own steam, and sighed, leaning both hands against the sink to stare into the mirror. His eyes were a little bloodshot and he wanted a shower badly, but that would have to wait until the bandages came off. He grimaced and grabbed his deodorant from the little cabinet.

Peter stuck his feet firmly to the tiled floor and stuck one hand against the wall for balance while he went to the bathroom. Thank goodness for spider powers, he thought. All in all, he was healing up pretty quickly. His pain levels were down significantly from last night, though the wound was still very tender and fresh. It would probably be a couple more weeks before he could get back to patrolling full time.

He washed his hands in the sink and splashed some cold water on his face. The blood had soaked through part of the dressing, and he peeled back the bandages a little to see.

“Everything alright in there?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “You can come in. I think I need some fresh gauze.”

Wade pushed the door open and stood behind Peter, facing the mirror.

“Let’s get you back to the bed first. Your painkillers are gonna kick in real soon and you’ll probably want to be sitting, at the very least.”

“’Kay. Yeah, starting to feel a little loopy,” Peter agreed. He let Wade guide him back into the bedroom with a gentle hand on the small of his back.

Wade carefully removed the bloody dressings and wiped away the blood caked around the wound. It was surreal for Wade. He was so used to watching his own wounds heal in a matter of seconds, but Petey’s stomach still had a big ol’ slice through it a day later.

Peter watched Wade redress the wound through heavy-lidded eyes. The pain had receded to a dull ache in his stomach once more, and he had a fleeting image of the Build-A-Bear stuffing machine filling up his head with clouds of soft, synthetic fibers and making him feel muzzy. Peter blinked slowly. Wade’s face was very close to his. He leaned forward and tried to kiss his cheek, but misjudged the distance and ended up banging his nose into Wade’s mask-covered cheekbone instead.

Wade jerked back in surprise. “Alright there, Petey?”

“Huh? Yeah was just try’na kiss ya. Tired. Gonna sleep now.”

“Can you wait until I finish this first? I’m almost done. And I made you soup. You need more fluids. You’re probably dehydrated.”

Peter nodded. “Okay.”

Wade wrapped Peter’s stomach in another layer of bandages and pressed a round Deadpool band aid on top with a small smile. He propped Peter up in bed with some pillows and brought back a bowl of the Cornish hen soup.

“Oh,” Peter moaned after the first spoonful, “this is amazing. Did you make this?”

“Yup,” Wade said, smiling despite himself. “I can teach you how. I had to go out and get you a soup pot. Petey, you have literally nothing to cook with in your kitchen. It’s a miracle you survived this long.”

Peter arched an eyebrow very dramatically and waved his spoon in the air, flicking drops of broth and thyme leaves. “I have super powers. Don’t need soup pots. Haha super soup. It’s pretty souper! Ha.”

Wade boggled at him. “O…kay. Wow, Petey. You are really high.”

“Sure am.”

Peter finished the bowl a few minutes later, and Wade cleared away the tray when Peter looked two seconds away from faceplanting in the remaining broth.

“Now, I’m going to sleep,” Peter announced, in a barely audible voice. “Stay with me?”

“I’m not going anywhere, baby boy.”

“No, here.” Peter gestured vaguely to the empty spot on the bed beside him. He reached out and poked Wade’s pectoral through his shirt, swaying into him. “I like your chest. It’s a nice chest. Wanna sleep on that.”

Wade went red beneath his mask and thanked Thor he was still wearing it. Peter was definitely out of it. He would never say things like this unless he were on drugs. “Um, thanks, Petey. I, uh, I… are you sure?”

Peter nodded and laid back down. Wade pulled some of the pillows out of the way to accommodate Peter’s new position and hesitated on the edge of the bed.

To cuddle or not to cuddle? Wade pursed his lips and thought hard. While he debated with himself, Peter drifted off to sleep again.

Well, Wade did say he was a selfish bastard.

Wade carefully climbed over Peter and lay stiffly on his back, leaving a few inches of space between his arm and Peter’s. He stared at the ceiling.

There was a crick in his neck. Wade rolled his shoulders a little.

Peter’s ceiling was kind of dirty. Wade closed his eyes.

He opened them a couple seconds later and shifted onto his side to stare at Peter’s face, relaxed in sleep, and thankfully not pinched in pain.

Peter’s skin was soft and pale. His lashes lay against his skin, and Wade wondered if they’d tickle against his cheek. He didn’t have eyelashes, and he didn’t remember what they felt like.

Peter was too good to be wrapped up in his Hand business. He was too pure, too adorable, too light-hearted. The Hand was darkness and control and suffocation, and Peter didn’t belong anywhere near them. It wasn’t fair that something like this should have happened to him. If they’d never met… If Wade had just died in somebody else’s apartment…

But no, Peter was friends with Spiderman, who apparently used Peter and his access to Stark’s labs all the time to identify substances and such. He might have gotten pulled into this without Wade. But Spiderman couldn’t be relied upon to protect Peter or come to his rescue.

How long would it be until the Hand realized that Peter was Wade’s biggest weakness? They had found Peter’s apartment, so it wasn’t a huge leap to assume they may have spied on the two of them together before. Wade was un-killable, but he could be compromised if they used Peter as leverage… Well, if they did that, they’d end up dead sooner, rather than later, and at this point, Wade was itching to take some heads, impale some torsos, chop off some more hands, and just generally go after the Hand in retaliation for stabbing Peter. The Hand could still do a lot of damage to Peter regardless though. Case in point, Wade thought, tracing the outline of Peter’s jaw with his gloved fingertip and pointedly avoiding looking anywhere near his bandage-swathed abdomen.

Maybe he should stop seeing Peter.

If he made it clear that Peter was no longer important to him, Peter would be safer from the Hand. He would convince Spiderman to do the same, after having very strong words with him over his broken promise, of course. Make no mistake, Wade was still furious with the wall-crawler and planned to hunt him down as soon as Matt was free to watch Peter for him.

Leaving Peter would hurt. It would probably hurt Peter too, but it was for the best, Wade decided. He could make that sacrifice because he loved Peter, and Peter’s safety needed to come before Wade’s own selfish happiness. He was just being selfish by loving Peter anyway. It was one-sided, he knew, and it would always be that way. Peter deserved the love of someone better than he. Wade would leave and Peter would move on.

It was for the best.

Wade’s mask grew damp, and he pressed his fingers to the fabric, trying to push the tears that had slipped down his cheeks back into his eyes. They wouldn’t go back though. He could no more replace his tears than he could carve his love for Peter from his heart.

 

Wade fell asleep at some point. When he woke, it was beginning to get dark outside and Peter was still sleeping. Carefully, so as not to disturb him, Wade slipped from the bed and cursed himself for letting his guard down. He went to look for his suit. Time for guard duty.

 

Matt came around a few days later as promised. He climbed through the living room window in his Daredevil suit and dropped his briefcase on the coffee table.

Wade was standing by the darkened window, watching the surrounding rooftops, a hand resting on either thigh holster. He nudged the Deadpool plushie over to sit beside Matt on the couch, knowing Matt would hear any threat approaching long before he could spot it. 

The rest of the apartment was dark and quiet. Peter was still sleeping.

“How has he been? Any change?” Matt asked.

“He seemed a lot better this morning. He went to the bathroom on his own again and ate more of the soup, but the painkillers are making him really sleepy, so he’s just been asleep all day.” Wade shrugged.

“And have you gotten any sleep?” Matt asked.

Wade rolled his eyes. “Like you can’t tell from listening to my heartbeat or the noises my stomach makes or some shit.”

Matt smirked. “It’s polite to ask.”

“Well, yeah, no I haven’t slept since that my last job, but I napped a little yesterday and made some pancakes. Want any?”

“No thank you. I already ate.” Matt withdrew some folders from his briefcase and set them on the coffee table. “I brought some work along, but I’ll be on guard all night. You should go get some sleep and relax a little.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.” Wade rubbed his hands nervously on his thighs. “I was thinking…”

Matt inclined his head in a “go on” gesture.

Wade took a deep breath. “I’ve decided that, for Peter’s sake, I’m going to keep away from him. He’s my biggest weakness and the Hand is going to exploit that at some point, I know it. They’ve already gotten to Peter twice. If I stay away and cut ties, they’ll leave him alone.”

Matt sighed and took off his mask to scrub a hand over his face. “You don’t know that, Wade. You’ll hurt Peter if you leave him. And if you think he’s just going to _let_ you leave him, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I don’t know how else to keep him safe.”

“You’ve been doing a fine job so far.”

“Yes, now,” Wade bit out. He stood abruptly and began pacing on the rug. “But I wasn’t here when he was attacked. I should have been here.”

“You can’t blame yourself for everything, Wade. You couldn’t have known.” Matt sighed. Quietly, he said, “A man once told me that relationships are a luxury men like you and me can’t afford. He wanted me to push Karen and Foggy away, to leave my job, and become a full-time warrior with the Chaste.”

Wade nodded. “So they’d be safe from the Hand.”

“No, because he considered relationships a hindrance. Anything that wasn’t the war was a hindrance. He was always going on about the war.” Matt sighed bitterly, shoulders tense with anger. Wade stopped pacing and waited for him to continue.

“He viewed people as tools. He was wrong in so many ways.”

“But I’m trying to _protect_ Peter!”

“I know you are, but pushing him away isn’t the right way to go about it. You’d be taking away his choice, and after getting attacked, the last thing he probably wants is to lose you and feel abandoned and powerless.

“Love is a source of strength, not a hindrance. The man who told me to leave my friends could never understand that, but I vowed I wouldn’t be like him. Wade, you can’t abandon Peter.”

Wade dropped back onto the couch and heaved a sigh. He laughed bitterly and scratched his head. “Love, huh?”

Matt nodded.

“I’ll think about it,” Wade said, standing up again. He shouldered his duffle bag and headed for the window.

“Okay,” Matt said. “You going to get some sleep now?”

“Yeah.” His voice dropped. “Then I have a spider to hunt down.”

Wade climbed out the window and was gone.

 

As soon as Wade was gone, Matt sighed in annoyance and went to Peter’s bedroom. Peter was still asleep, so Matt carefully peeled back some of the bandages and held his ear close, listening to Peter’s body. The wound was healing rapidly. Matt expected that, with all this sleep, Peter would be up and moving a bit on Tylenol in a day or so.

He went back to the living room for his briefcase and then sat in a chair by Peter’s bed, going over some case files in the darkened bedroom.

It was nearing eleven o’clock when Peter sighed and opened his eyes, blinking in the dark.

“Wade?”

“It’s Matt. How are you feeling, Peter?”

“Oh, hey, Matt. Painkillers wore off, so uh, hurts? But I feel better than yesterday.”

“It’s healing pretty fast. You should be able to get off those in another day.”

“Good,” Peter said, flexing his fingers. “I hate feeling all foggy. Uh, no offense to your friend.”

“None taken,” Matt said, chuckling. He put his papers aside and angled the chair to face Peter. In a softer voice, he asked, “Do you feel up for talking about the attack?”

Peter hesitated. “Uh, I guess so.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll have to at some point.” He shrugged against the mattress. “I…I think they took my blood, Matt. They chloroformed me first and as soon as I came out of that, I just remember screaming and then trying to call for help.”

“I thought as much. I felt something off about your arm. Pinprick here,” he said, brushing his finger over the inside of Peter’s elbow. “What should we be looking for?”

“The spider mutation is keyed only to my DNA, so we don’t have to worry about ninjas with spider powers. And I doubt they could create my webbing anyway. But it accelerated the goblin disease that the Osborns had,” Peter explained. He paused to take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“So they may use it to create a synthetic healing factor or amplify any other mutations they’re attempting,” Matt said. “Do you know how much they took?”

“No,” Peter said. “But it couldn’t have been that much or I’d have died from blood loss from the…other attack.”

Matt hummed, thinking. “We’ll try to retrieve your blood, but it sounds like they took it mostly for testing since they didn’t bleed you dry or abduct you for their farms.”

“I doubt it’ll have any effect on them, but I’d like it back all the same. I’ve run some tests and simulations on my blood with JARVIS at Stark Industries and we came up dry for interactions with others’ blood. Still, the Hand’s a little different.”

“True, but that’s good,” Matt said. “That’s good. Hopeful.”

“Yup.”

“And have you told Wade yet?”

Peter knew he wasn’t talking about the stolen blood, not directly at least. He groaned. “I remember doing it. I told him how I felt and told him that I was Spiderman, but I was really high at the time and he didn’t really react or say anything. Did he say anything to you?”

“He…He didn’t believe you, I guess. We talked a bit about you, but he never brought up a Spiderman connection besides being out for Spidey’s blood for breaking his promise to protect you. I didn’t say anything. It’s not my secret to tell. I think he’s looking for Spidey now.”

“Well, Spiderman is out of commission.” Peter grimaced in pain and looked toward the night stand. “Could you hand me the painkillers, please?”

“Sure,” Matt said, passing Peter a pill and the half-full glass of water from the night stand. He placed a hand behind Peter’s head to help him drink.

“Thanks,” Peter said, settling back into the pillows. “I can’t wait until I’m fully healed. Sleeping around the clock sucks. My muscles feel all twitchy.”

“Your healing factor can work better when you’re asleep,” Matt reminded him. “Don’t worry. We’ll get your blood back and things will work out between you and Wade. He loves you too.”

Peter hummed and nodded. “Thanks for staying with me, Matt.”

“No problem, Spidey.”

 

Wade returned midmorning on Sunday to relieve Matt. When Peter woke up briefly, he saw his dressing had been changed with a new Hello Kitty band aid again.

Wade wouldn’t talk to him though. He grunted at Peter’s attempts at conversation and stayed in the living room to keep watch. His movements were carefully controlled, no extra arm flailing, no extraneous motions. Peter wondered if this was what Wade was like while deep into a mission, pure efficiency, total concentration. It was a jarring sight when Peter was used to a loose-limbed, hyper-active red-and-black-suited man. This Wade was easy to picture as an assassin. It scared Peter a little bit, put him on edge. Why was he acting like this? Was it about the lie?

The next time Wade came into Peter’s room to check the windows, Peter reached out to lay a hand on Wade’s arm. He immediately felt the muscles go tense beneath his palm and pulled his hand back.

“Are you alright, Wade?”

“Yeah. Sorry, Petey. I’m just a little frustrated is all. I – what the hell was that?”

Wade turned back to the window and stood staring as a thick grey cloud descended upon Stark Tower in the distance. The cloud dispersed into individual units that descended upon the city.

“Shit.” Wade shook his head and exhale loudly.

“What is it?” Peter asked, sitting up.

“Doombot attack,” Wade said, hand automatically reaching for his swords. He lowered his hand and clenched it into a fist. Peter craned his head to see out the window, just in time to spot a red and gold shape flying into the midst of the Doom bots. Iron Man.

Wade’s phone buzzed and he jumped. He practically ripped it from its pouch on his belt and swiped quickly to answer the call.

“I can’t right now,” he said into the phone. “I’m working. Personal security.”

Peter glared at him. The fuck? Personal security, his ass.

“No, it _really doesn’t_. Can’t you guys handle it? Shit, okay. I…Yeah, you…you have a point. Ten minutes.” He hung up and turned back to Peter, looking tense and troubled beneath the mask.

“The Avengers are understaffed today, go figure. It’s only Iron Man and Widow at the Tower. They want me to help out with the bots.”

“You should go,” Peter said. “It’s daytime. I’ll be fine.”

Wade looked conflicted. “I can stay if you want me to.”

“The city needs you, especially if it’s just Iron Man and N-The Black Widow. Doom bots cause a lot of destruction. And you just told them you’d go.”

“They could get to your building and I wouldn’t be here to protect you.”

“Well, they’re less likely to get all the way over here if you go stop them by Stark Tower now,” Peter pointed out.

Wade’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, that’s what Widow said. You’re right. Okay. But you be sure to call me if something happens, okay, Peter? I’ll come right back.”

“Got it. Now go be a hero, Wade.” Peter smiled.

Wade flinched, but nodded sharply and exited Peter’s bedroom. Peter could hear him holstering more guns and extra ammunition. The window slid open and shut with a thud.

Peter took a deep breath.

No way was he going to sit by while Doom bots attacked New York City. Especially not if there were only two Avengers and Deadpool on the scene to stop an army.

He snatched the bottle of painkillers from the night stand, but changed his mind and hauled himself to the bathroom where he kept his Extra Strength Tylenol. He needed a clear head more than a pain-free body.

The bottle was almost empty, so Peter dumped the remaining pills into his hand and dry swallowed them in a rush. He splashed some water onto his face, and then dashed for his closet, wincing, and tugged on his spare suit as quickly as he could while minding his injuries. He slid his web shooters onto his wrists and gave himself a once over.

“Okay, Parker.”

He’d fought with gunshot wounds before. He’d fought through cracked ribs and a concussion before.

And he was also fucking tired of staying in bed for days on end and the city needed him too.

Peter pushed his living room window open and leapt out.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's an idiot. But you knew that already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys got me all figured out! Here it is -- the big moment.  
> When I began this fic, it started as a one-shot. I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to anything longer, but your encouraging comments thankfully made me change my mind. After writing those first two tentative chapters, I had this scene stuck in my head, but wasn't sure how to arrive at it. But here we are at last.  
> This is the second-longest thing I've written in a while (the first was a Merlin fic in 2011), and now that I have this under my belt, I plan on tackling some longer fics in the future, so keep your eyes peeled!
> 
> Also, I'll be very busy in the coming months, so this chapter is a bit short, but I didn't want to leave you all hanging on chapter 10.

Why did he think this was a good idea again?

Peter swung through the city as smoothly as he could, but every time his web caught onto a new anchor point, the motion jarred his body through the downswing and he grunted in pain.

Core muscles were kind of important for everything. Peter clenched his teeth and landed on a rooftop, close enough that he could jog the rest of the way.

Iron Man was exploding the bots in the air. They went off like fireworks, bursting with red sparks as metal clattered to the streets below. There were few civilians left on the streets that Peter could see, thankfully. With the frequency of Doom’s attacks, New Yorkers had learned pretty quickly to get inside or into the subways and let the Avengers handle things.

Peter climbed higher up the building he currently clung to and saw Widow taking on a small swarm of the bots outside Central Park. She moved fluidly, hitting them hard with her stingers, and they fell in a circle around her as she spun. From what Peter could see, there was a slight opening in all of their casings. Natasha was aiming for that spot, ripping out wires.

Peter’s spider sense went off and he ducked as a Doom bot fired at him. It reversed directions and came straight him again.

“Rude,” Peter said. But oh, how nice that tingling felt on his neck. He wasn’t weak, he wasn’t bedridden. Whatever the Hand had been going for with their painful non-lethal stabbing agenda, it hadn’t succeeded in knocking down Peter’s resolve. He had a responsibility, first and foremost.

He launched himself off the building and landed on the bot’s back in a crouch. The casing vulnerability was obvious now from his position, so he reached in and jerked out a handful of wires. The bot sputtered and spiraled to the ground, shooting off rounds as it went. Peter leapt off it and lowered himself to street level.

He punched another bot, but its arm caught him in the jaw and he went sprawling at the unexpected hook. Peter sat up, head spinning. He could taste blood in his mouth where he’d bitten his tongue and a wave of nausea gripped his head.

His spider sense made him jerk around the next instant to see a Doom bot barreling toward him. Peter scrambled to his feet and shot a web at a street light to pull himself out the way, but before his feet left the ground, a blur of red and black shot out of an alley and body slammed the bot before it could reach him.

Deadpool took off its head with a swing of his katana and ran it through, cutting its power supply to shreds. Peter crouched on the side of the street light pole, eyes wide.

Deadpool turned a steely masked glare on him that spoke of unpleasant future conversations and stalked away.

But Peter didn’t have time to dwell on that. More Doom bots were reaching ground level and the pain in his stomach was worsening. He shot a web up to get himself to a better vantage point and webbed his way to the Empire State Building on the perimeter of the fighting. It would be best to web them up from a distance, Peter decided. Engaging in direct combat while injured was doing him no favors.

But stitches or not, he was here now and nothing short of unconsciousness or completely reopening his wound was going to stop him from defending his city. With great power… well, he had limited power at the moment, he thought, so did that equal less responsibility?

No, but maybe less direct involvement at least.

Peter clung firmly to the side of the building and readied his web shooters with fresh cartridges for high impact hits. He held out his wrists, taking careful aim, and shot webs at two of the Doom bots flying straight on Iron Man’s six. The webs smacked into the controls casing, denting the metal and crushing the circuitry. Both bots cut off, sparking, and dropped from the sky.

Iron Man nodded to him. “Thanks, Spiderman.”

Peter saluted him in return and began taking out as many Doom bots as he could from his perch on the building. When the bots in the skies began to thin, he dropped lower on the building and picked them off where they cluttered up the streets.

Peter saw Matt bashing Doom bots alongside Wade in an intersection.

Matt kicked in the chest of a Doom bot and paused, tilted his head. Beside him, Wade impaled another bot and reached in to tear out the wires.

Then Matt angled his head up toward Peter’s position on the bank across the street and managed to glare at him, looking as if he wanted to shout, “How stupid are you?”

Peter shrugged and waved his hand around, indicating the bots swarming Stark Tower. What other option did he have? Also, he worked there.

Matt managed to read his movements and gave him the equivalent of long-distance eye-rolling and went back to taking down bots. Peter shot them with his high impact webs from his position and tried to ignore the glares Deadpool kept giving him when he’d take out a bot close to Wade.

An hour later, Peter spotted the quinjet coming up to the Stark Tower landing pad and sagged with relief. He was exhausted. His muscles had been itching for a fight for so long, but after those days in bed doing nothing but sleeping and maintaining a diet of soup and narcotics, his body wasn’t really up for superheroing, much as he hated to admit. In fact, he thought he might throw up.

Captain America leapt out of the quinjet, followed closely by Hawkeye and War Machine. Hawkeye stayed up on the Tower, sniping bots as soon as his boots touched the landing pad. While the others made for the streets as quickly as they could.

Peter took out nine more bots before he called it a day and swung back to the perimeter of the fighting to catch his breath. He stopped any bots that attempted to get past him, but he did it from the comfort of his back on a nice, flat rooftop, where he could rest.

With the support of the other Avengers back from wherever, the Doom bots were routed within the hour, the ones still capable of flight heading back to Latveria.

Peter sighed and stared at the now bot-free sky. The Tylenol had started to wear off about fifteen minutes ago and his wound felt like it was on fire, muscles and skin straining against the stitches. It hadn’t broken open though, a fact Peter was very proud of and one he would use as his defense when Matt and Wade inevitably yelled at him for being reckless. Well, Wade would be yelling for some additional reasons too, he thought.

He began to feel stiff, overworked muscles burning. As carefully as he could, he rolled onto his side and pushed himself into a sitting position, breathing slowly and evenly to keep the pain at bay. It didn’t quite work, but he hadn’t collapsed in a puddle of pain yet, so he counted it as a win. He’d just taken out over sixty Doom bots after getting stabbed. That had to count for something.

He was just getting to his feet when his spider sense went wild. He threw his head to the right and a bullet _whizzed_ by his face, inches from his nose. Peter whipped around and saw Deadpool pulling himself onto the roof, guns raised for another attack.

Peter held out his hands in an attempt to slow the merc down. “Hey! Wait, let’s talk this out. I need to explain!”

“You’re damn right you do!” Wade shouted, advancing. He fired again and Peter dodged.

“Please, just listen. I’m sorry! It’s me – it’s—”

 “Why should I?” Wade snarled, talking over him. “Why should I listen to anything you say when it’s just going to be more lies and more broken promises?”

He holstered his guns and drew both katanas. They glittered in the afternoon sunlight as Wade came toward him. “You broke your promise. You promised me you would protect Peter!”

Peter was at the edge of the building. Wade swiped at him with one sword and Peter leapt over his head, rolling over and into a crouch behind Wade. Wade spun around and kept coming at him.

“Wade, please, let me explain. I—”

“SHUT UP. I have been _looking_ for you everywhere. Where were you when Peter was attacked by the Hand? Where were you when he was bleeding out in his own bed? You fucking piece of shit, you left him to die!”

Wade charged him and Peter lunged sideways to avoid the swords, but Wade anticipated his evasion and caught him with a boot to the stomach. Peter shouted in pain and flew backward, slamming into an air vent unit.

A sword was at his throat the next instant, pressing into his neck just enough to draw a trickle of blood.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Wade growled. He punched the vent behind Peter’s head hard enough that Peter’s ears rang. “SPEAK UP.”

Peter’s vision swam, spotty with pain, and he slumped against the vent. He tried to speak, but the blade nicked him and he would have begun to panic if not for the intense pain in his gut that drew his attention.

Wade pulled his sword back a fraction to let him speak, but all that came out was a low groan of pain. Peter tried to suck in some air, but everything was starting to get dark and fuzzy.

His shirt was growing damp. What was…? Peter reached toward his stomach, but pulled back his hand with a hiss of pain.

“Spidey?” Wade asked, confused, but no less tense. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Say something. Why weren’t you--”

Wade leaned back from Peter’s masked face and his eyes widened when he saw a wide patch of blood blooming beneath the spider suit.

“The fuck…? I didn’t even…” Wade put down his swords and reached for the edge of Peter’s spider shirt to tug it up roughly.

He dropped it a second later and leapt back like it burnt. Spiderman’s stomach was wrapped in bandages. Blood soaked through them rapidly now, beading on the outside of the bandages and running into the face of the winking Hello Kitty band aid. The one’d put on Peter this morning.

“Oh my god,” he whispered. “Oh my god! Peter? No, shit, shit. Peter!” He threw himself forward, cupping Peter’s face in his hands. Peter’s head lolled to the side.

Wade pressed his hand against the wound, trying to hold back the blood. “Baby boy. Please. Talk to me.”

Peter didn’t respond.

“Shit, you tried to tell me, but I…Peter! Wake up.” Wade shrugged off his scabbards and pulled off his own shirt to wrap it tightly around Peter’s waist in a makeshift tourniquet.

“Damn you. Don’t die on me.” He lifted Peter into his arms as carefully as he could and headed for the fire escape, uncaring of all his exposed skin.

When they reached street level, Wade readjusted his grip on Peter.

“DAREDEVIL,” he shouted. “I need you!” He had no idea where Matt was at the moment, but he knew he’d hear them.

Wade took off down the street, heading for one of his safe houses and trying not to jostle Peter too badly.

Matt appeared by his side a moment later like a devilish angel.

“What happened?” he asked, slightly out of breath.

Wade gritted his teeth and stared at straight ahead, unable to look Matt in the eye.

“I kicked him in the stomach. His wound’s reopened.”

Matt nodded briskly. “I’ll get Claire.”

 _He knew_ , Wade thought, watching Matt disappear down an alley.

 

 

 

“Steady, steady. Okay, put him down. What kind of special idiot is he?”

“What can I do?”

“I need light. Wade, do you have –-”

“Will this work?”

“Bring it over here. Hold it up like that – yes.”

“…What…? What’s happening…?”

“Peter, you’ve reopened your wound. Claire’s here to help you.”

“ _He_ didn’t. It was me. It was me. It’s my fault he’s like this again.”

“You can play the blame game later, but right now I need you to keep that light steady. Honestly. Matt, the shears. Peter? Peter? No, I’m here to help. I need to cut off your suit. Just relax. Your friends are here. Matt, take his mask off. He can’t breathe.”

“…Wade…”

“Petey!”

“Stop moving the light! Aren’t there any working lightbulbs in here? A lamp?”

“No, the electricity’s been cut! I hardly ever come here.”

“Then hold the damn flashlight still.”

 

“Is he supposed to be bleeding like that?”

“I have to remove the old stitches first and re-clean the wound. Fresh blood flow like this is normal, so long as it’s not gushing. Saline, please. Shit, Matt can you hold him down? Tighter. Thanks.”

 

“He’ll be okay?”

“That’s the best I can do right now. You guys seriously need to ease up on the vigilante thing. If anything changes – if the wound area feels hot to the touch or looks any way infected, call me as soon as you can. I’ll tell you which antibiotics to…steal, I guess. I can’t prescribe things.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Just doing my job. Ready, Matt?”

“You’re not staying, Matt?”

“I have work tomorrow.”

“But…”

“I have a really big trial tomorrow. I need to prepare for it or Foggy will probably strangle me if I go in again without filling him in. You’ll be fine, Wade. I’m only a phone call away.”

 

 

“I can’t do this.”

 

The city lights shifted against the newsprint plastered over the windows, their glow casting weak shadows on the hardwood and chipped tile of the kitchenette. Wade leaned against the counter next to the old gas stove, sipping a cup of coffee made from some slightly stale instant grounds he’d found shoved into a corner of one of the kitchen cabinets. All four burners were turned to medium heat, blue flames simmering at the gas grates. There wasn’t any heat in the apartment, so it was up to the old gas stove to fill the shoes of its fireplace forebears.

Wade had thought about moving Peter into the kitchen so he’d be warmer, but when he’d tried to drag the bed, Peter’s face had screwed up in pain at the jostling and Wade had let go of the bed like it was a hot coal. Instead, he had gathered up every reasonably clean spare blanket he could find in the safe house and, carefully so as not to touch him, arranged them around Peter, cocooning him in… possibly actual cocoons. Well, he hadn’t exactly been around here often enough to keep up with the moth ball routine.

But Peter was warm now and sleeping, and Wade was doing his best to simultaneously hide and be an officious caretaker. The two didn’t exactly go well together, but Wade himself was divided.

He knew Spiderman’s secret identity now, but the revelation wasn’t accompanied with the excitement he’d been anticipating before all this. Spiderman had been his idol for so long, and honestly, if it could have been anyone, he was glad it was Peter. He loved Peter.

But why did it have to be _Peter?_

Peter, whom he had threatened and attacked and would have injured very badly – oh, yes, Wade couldn’t deny it to himself. He had been ready and fully prepared to lay into Spiderman ever since he’d gotten that awful phone call.

And he would have ended up killing Peter.

Wade covered his face with his gloved hands and sobbed. It didn’t matter if he was good or if he fell in love, he would always hurt the people he cared about. Wade pushed away from the counter, stepping over the broken coffee mug on the floor, and strode toward the bedroom where Peter lay.

He watched the stuttered rise and fall of Peter’s chest, bare except for a light dusting of hair and a swath of new bandages. Who knew such a fragile human body could have Spiderman’s powers? Who knew such a small, injured man had the capacity to lie to Wade’s face for months, weave a web so tangled that even he could not escape it himself?

Wade’s face twisted in a grimace and he turned away to sit in the old armchair by the broken window.

 

In the kitchen, the lukewarm coffee spread over the kitchen floor and sunk into the chipped grout between the tiles when it had nowhere else to flow.

Wade hadn’t heard it fall from his hands.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more of these idiots

Nearly a week passed before Peter was healed enough to move out of Wade’s dingy safe house and back to his own apartment, but even then, he was confined to the bed, as per Claire’s directions.

And he hated it. His entire body ached, muscles burning from lack of use, but especially his back and thighs. His mattress was old and had developed a small crater from years of use. Peter arched his back, trying to stretch, but inevitably sunk back into the mattress and into more backache. He sighed loudly. His chest felt tight with the way his shoulders folded in around the dip in the bed and everything just came down to this damn bed, didn’t it? He’d almost be better off on the floor, he thought.

Wade had been sleeping on his couch, Peter knew. He heard the merc shifting during the night, trying to stretch out on the couch that was too small for his long legs. He heard the shower running in the evenings and longed for a shower of his own. He was able to make it to the bathroom to wash as best he could, but oh how he longed for the feel of the water hitting his back, washing everything away. He could scrub off the sweat and clean gently around the wound, but he couldn’t shake the exhaustion that settled into his bones and wrapped around his chest and head like a fog, making it hard to breathe at times and hard to fall asleep.

He bought one of those hydration backpacks for cycling on Amazon. Wade had filled it with ice water and hung it up on the bedpost so Peter could sip through the long straw.

Mostly, Peter read books or played on his phone. He avoided looking at news sites and any talk about Spiderman’s absence.

He was half way through _A Storm of Swords_ when there was a knock at the door. Peter put down the book, slipping a scrap of loose leaf between the pages to hold his place, and craned his head toward the door.

He heard Wade leave the kitchen and click the safety off his gun before calling through the door.

“Who is it?”

There was a pause, then a familiar voice said, “Uh, it’s Tony Stark. Is Mr. Parker in?”

Wade flung the door open and holstered his gun again. “What are you doing here?”

Tony tensed. “I could ask you the same question, Wade.”

“Mr. Stark?” Peter called. His heart rate sky rocketed. _What_ was he doing here?

Tony appeared in the doorway a moment later, followed by Wade who loomed over him like a heavily armed red shadow.

He smiled tightly and gestured to Peter’s injury. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. The Avengers were called away out of country, but I wanted to make sure you were alright. You’re an important member of the biotech team! JARVIS informed me you’d been injured last week during the Doom bot attack at the Tower.”

“JARVIS said…” Peter’s eyes went shifty.

Tony flicked his eyes at Wade questioningly and Peter sighed, understanding. “Yeah, he knows. How did you find out?”

“Come on, Parker. JARVIS scans every new employee. But your secret’s safe with me. I respect your privacy. JARVIS said you were adamant about it not getting out.”

“I – yeah.” Peter relaxed back into the pillows with a resigned sigh. He didn’t miss the way Wade suddenly found Tony’s shoes so interesting.

Tony came into the room and sat on the edge of his bed. “JARVIS put you on a medical leave of absence last week and is happy to help create whatever alibi you’d like,” he explained. “I wouldn’t have said anything about it, but I heard you were banged up pretty bad and thought it might put you at ease to know that whatever medical treatment you need will be covered and kept confidential and that your job is still waiting for you.

“But speaking of jobs, since _you_ now know that I know, I’d like to offer you a position in the top physics branch. I know that’s your main specialty.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter protested, “I’m… Thank you, but I can’t accept that just because of our connections outside of work.”

“Parker, you could have had that job ages ago. You’re more than qualified, even if you haven’t finished your degree yet, and to be frank, you’re way too smart to be working in Biotech 1 with those guys. I stopped pushing you to take a higher position than what you applied for when JARVIS suggested it seemed like you were trying to hide from me to keep your identity a secret.” Tony narrowed his eyes playfully at Peter.

“Ah,” Peter said. He glanced at Wade, but Wade was looking out the window.

“You’ll get a private lab like Bruce,” Tony wheedled. Peter’s eyes lit up, but he still hesitated. “You can do all the side experiments you want as long as you get your regular work done. Also, did I mention a salary boost?”

Peter smiled. “You know I’d take the job even without the pay raise.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony said, glancing around the apartment and Peter’s creaky mattress, “it looks like you could use it – no offense.”

Peter laughed. “Insulting my home is a great way to go about this.”

Tony shrugged, grinning. “So is that a yes?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, nodding happily. “It’s a yes. Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

“Call me Tony.” He winked and stood up to leave, gesturing to Wade. “Are you going to give me an armed escort out of here, Mr. Wilson?”

“Aw, Tin Can, I sure am. Right this way.”

“See you at the Tower, Peter!” Tony called over his shoulder.

Peter heard the door shut behind him quietly.

“Wade?”

They needed to talk about this.

“Wade? Can we talk?”

Peter heard some pots and pans banging around in the kitchen sink. Water flowed into a deep pot, the initial splash loud and echoing slightly up the sides. It ended up on the stove a moment later, and Peter heard the pop of the gas coming on.

When he could hear the water begin to boil, Peter tried again. “Wade? Please. We need to discuss this. I need to explain why I kept it from you.”

A sound like a shiver came from the kitchen, which Peter absently identified as pasta sliding out of a box. A wooden spoon occasionally clacked against the pot, making a series of dull thumps.

Another pan landed on the stove and the gas came on with a pop, flames crackling. Peter could hear sizzling and the smell of garlic and butter frying drifted through the open door of his bedroom.

He flicked his wrist at the door knob, using his webs to pull the door open wider. (He’d taken to wearing his web-shooters all the time.) He still couldn’t see much from his place on the bed.

Wade hadn’t spoken to him all week, except for the occasional inquiry on his health. Peter had never seen him so silent before.

About ten minutes later, Peter’s bedroom door flew open to bang against the wall. Wade walked in with a tray, and Peter hurried to sit up so he wouldn’t get pinned on his back beneath things that could spill everywhere.

Wade set the tray down gently. When he straightened, he wiped his hands nervously on his apron front and looked like he wanted to say something, but barely a sigh escaped his lips before he turned on his heel and left, closing the bedroom door after him. Peter heard him washing dishes.

He looked down at his lap and was faced with a plate of linguine and white clam sauce with scallops seared to a perfect, buttery gold. Peter brought the side of his fork down gently on one of the scallops, and the white flesh parted easily. He took up the piece on his fork and twirled some linguine before taking a bite.

It was delicious and Peter felt like crying.

 

Wade hummed quietly to himself as he wiped olive oil from the sauce pan with a soapy sponge. Even if he couldn’t be there for Peter like he wanted to, at least his cooking would help Peter. Wade hoped it was good.

When he finished cleaning up the dishes, he opened the fridge and pulled out a beer and a cold, slightly soggy burrito, and sat down on the couch to eat his own dinner.

He didn’t taste it, just chewed and swallowed it down automatically. Peter would be better in another week, and then Wade could leave. He shouldn’t be around Peter at all in the first place, but with Peter injured, he still needed protection in case the Hand came back, and Wade wasn’t willing to place Peter’s welfare in anyone else’s hands but his own.

He knew Peter was hurt by his continued silence and the distance, but Wade still loved Peter. That was why he was doing this. He needed Peter to let him be, to stop pushing for conversation and for whatever they had before.

He didn’t deserve to touch Peter. He could still recall the satisfaction and glee he’d felt when his boot had collided with Spiderman’s body, sending him crashing back into the metal air vents. He felt sick whenever he thought about it, which was fairly often now.

But looking at Peter and talking to him also made something ugly twist inside him. Wade had trusted Peter completely, until he realized he’d been played. All of their conversations came back to him in a barrage of emotion and memory, all those times he’d talked to Peter about Spiderman or the other way around, all those things he should have seen, the connections he should have made, but didn’t. It all hurt and Wade felt like a fool. But he was still _in love_.

He understood Peter’s desire for privacy and his secret identity. Wade always respected Spiderman’s secret identity thing, even though he pushed boundaries and teased him. But they had become friends, and then, at least from Wade’s end, he’d fallen in love, and why hadn’t Peter revealed it then, when there was trust and friendship between them? By then, he should have known that Wade wouldn’t exploit him or share his secret.

The only answer that Wade could come up with was that Peter did not feel the same way. He must not have trusted him enough or loved him enough to trust him with his secret. Wade was confused, because he sure _thought_ Peter trusted him.

 _But he would have said something_.

Another part of him said, _well, he did, you idiot, and you ignored him._

And that was another thing, wasn’t it? Wade _had_ heard the truth, but he hadn’t believed it, and if he’d only _listened_ he would never have gone after Spiderman like that and Peter wouldn’t be…

It all came back to him, he thought. Peter _had_ told him, even if the admission came a little later than Wade had expected in hindsight. This was all on Wade. He wanted to be able to blame Peter for some of the pain he felt, and part of him irrationally did, but at the same time he _couldn’t_. Not really.

 

The apartment grew dark as the night deepened. Wade shot to his feet when he heard a noise in Peter’s bedroom. He drew his gun and crept carefully across the floor, having already memorized which boards to avoid.

The door was ajar. Wade pushed it open slowly.

Peter was tossing in bed, arms jerking. Wade thought he might be in pain, and put his gun down to reach for the Tylenol, but Peter let out a whimper and when Wade came closer to peer at his face, he saw terror instead. Nightmares.

Well, no wonder, Wade thought. Was Peter reliving the stabbing? The sewer fights?

Before he was aware of it, Wade found himself hovering over Peter anxiously, hand outstretched to stroke his brow and tell him it was okay, _it’s just a dream_.

He snatched his hand back, flushed with shame. What right did he have to soothe Peter and offer comfort when not one week ago he had viciously attacked him with intent to maim – just like the Hand who had stabbed him.

 _And you only made the wound worse_ , Wade told himself harshly.

 

The next few days passed in much the same manner. Peter read in bed. Wade cooked for him. Peter tried to talk to him. Wade did the dishes. Peter fell asleep. Wade –

Wade lay on his back on the couch and stared hard at the ceiling. Peter had just woken up, screaming again in the bedroom from another nightmare.

Wade almost got off the couch when he heard his name. Peter called for him again, but it was interrupted by a sob and then the bedroom went quiet again. Peter had likely fallen back asleep. Wade relaxed slowly, unclenching his fists and pressing his palms flat on the couch to calm himself. He had to stay away. Maintain the distance. He shouldn’t touch Peter – had no right to.

 

Peter’s nightmares continued. Wade often found himself hovering on the threshold to Peter’s room, pacing.

Tonight, he had to stab himself in the leg to snap out of it and sit back down on the couch. But he could still hear Peter.

“No! Wade… No, please, I’m sorry, please, _please_ _don’t_ —”

Don’t kill me, don’t run me through, don’t _hurt me_. Wade closed his eyes tightly. How had he fallen so far that he became the stuff of nightmares for someone he loved? Well, he thought, it wasn’t that hard to guess. He ought to get Matt over here to calm Peter down. Matt always knew what to say.

Peter was sobbing now. Wade could tell from the slower sounds of movements that he was awake. But then Peter’s sobs grew louder, his breath hitching, and Wade’s eyes shot open.

_Oh, no, please, no baby_

Peter gasped and his breaths came shallow and fast. Something crashed to the ground and Wade was at the bedroom door before it registered with him, hand poised above the door knob.

“Fuck it,” he said. He turned the knob and stepped into the dark room. Peter was hyperventilating in the middle of the bed, sheets tangled around his waist, blinking rapidly to stave off the black spots creeping in on his vision.

Wade moved toward the bed and placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Peter, calm down, please. Just breathe. Breathe with me.”

Peter slumped toward his hand, dizzy and quivering with the force of his breaths as they were roughly jerked from his lungs. Wade climbed onto the bed behind him and pulled Peter against his chest, wrapping his arms around him. He brought his hands up to Peter’s face, cupping them over his mouth and nose to help raise his carbon dioxide levels, and kept up a steady stream of what he hoped were soothing words.

“Petey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Just breathe for me. Try to breathe slowly. That’s it.” He pressed his face to Peter’s neck, half to hide and half to nuzzle him gently. He knew he shouldn’t, but Peter needed the comfort right now in order to calm down and Wade could pretend for just this moment that everything was okay and he was just holding Peter in his arms.

Peter’s chest began to relax and his breaths came more slowly now, though they were still a tad too fast. Wade removed his hands and rubbed Peter’s back with one hand, leaving the other resting on his chest, as though to gentle his racing heart.

“What,” Peter gasped. He took a few more breaths before he continued slowly, pausing to relax again when his lungs seized reflexively. “What are… what are you doing?”

Wade’s hand stilled against his back. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just… I couldn’t take it anymore. Every night, you’ve been screaming, and I know I shouldn’t, but… I can go. I’m sorry.” He made to move away.

“No!” Peter grabbed frantically at the arm resting on his chest. “ _Please_ _don’t_ _go_. Don’t leave me.”

“Baby boy.” The endearment slipped out. “I shouldn’t--”

“Don’t go,” Peter said.

Wade swallowed nervously. “Alright. I’m not going anywhere.”

He squeezed Peter a little tighter until he relaxed and then guided them both until they lay back on the bed. They shifted carefully, as Peter still needed to be mostly on his back, and ended up with Wade curled around him. Peter turned his face into the space between Wade’s neck and shoulder and exhaled shakily.

“Please don’t leave me,” he mumbled, drifting off the sleep again.

 

When the sun came up, Peter woke with puffy eyes, feeling dehydrated and exhausted. He could smell pancakes cooking in the kitchen and he frowned. Last night, he thought… The space beside him in the bed was empty, and it was cold when Peter pressed his hand against the mattress.

He looked up when the door opened. Wade came in, wearing a pink apron, with a plate of pancakes and a little bottle of Canadian maple syrup.

“Wade?” Peter asked, cautiously.

Wade set the tray down once Peter had sat up. Their eyes met for a brief moment before Wade turned and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you want some more angst? It's only [A Heartbeat Away](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11827155).


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade and Peter have a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg finally. I'm so sick of angst xD We're getting there...slowly...  
> There was going to be a lot more yelling, but then it got all tearful.
> 
> Also, I just sat down and watched all of Defenders while knitting socks. It was awesome except it's screwed with my Hand theories, so I'm going to have to ignore some of the new Netflix canon.  
> I got this chapter out tonight because I needed to exclaim over Defenders. Damn that finale.

Wade was dozing on the couch when he heard the door creak open. He reached for his gun on instinct, but dropped his hand back into his lap when he realized it wasn’t the front door, but the bedroom door. That meant Peter.

That meant Peter, who should not be getting out of bed now.

Wade rose from the couch and crossed his arms, fingers twitching nervously. Peter poked his head out the door and peered into the living room.

“Wade—”

“Go back to bed, Peter. You’re not healed enough to be walking around like this.”

Peter stepped fully into the room. “I’ve been getting to the bathroom without help for _days_ , Wade. I’m fine. It’s already starting scar.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Wade said, unmoving, “then you shouldn’t look like you’re about to fall over. Go. Back. To. Bed. Peter.”

Peter mimicked his stance and only swayed slightly against the door frame.

“No. No, I won’t go back to bed.” He pushed away from the wall and walked slowly toward Wade. “I am fucking tired of being in bed and being given the cold shoulder by you. We are going to sit down and talk about this.”

“Talk about this,” Wade repeated, gesturing between them. “About how you lied to me and made me feel like a fool? About how _I_ tried _to kill you?_ Is that what you want to talk about? Because I think I’d rather not right now.”

“I don’t care.” Peter stuck his hand against the floor lamp to steady himself and catch his breath. “We need to have this conversation! I need to explain. And you need to stop blaming yourself for _my_ injuries. I’m the one that lied. All you ever did was save my life and take care of me.”

Wade’s shoulders quivered with suppressed energy. He stared angrily out the window, masked jaw set stubbornly. “Huh,” he said sharply. He turned abruptly to stare at Peter where he clung to the stem of the lamp. “I distinctly recall shooting at you and kicking you in your already stabbed up body. What I did was not okay and you know what? I’m not ready to have this conversation. I can’t trust myself not to hurt you. And I can’t trust that you won’t lie to me again.”

He reached for his duffle bag and slung it over his shoulder, grabbing his phone off the couch. “If you’re so healed up, you won’t need me to babysit your fine ass any longer. We’ll talk about this later.” He headed for the front door.

Peter stared at his broad back for a second before he shook himself angrily and ripped his hand from the lamp, sending it to the floor with a crash. Wade flinched, but didn’t look back or slow his pace.

“We will _not_. Sit the fuck down, Wade.”

“See ya, Spidey.”

Peter growled at the flippant over-the-shoulder wave Wade sent him and thrust his wrist out, catching Wade in his lower back with a web. Peter jerked hard, but Wade spun around, knife in hand, and sliced through the webbing.

He glared at Peter through narrowed masked eyes and flipped the knife in his hand so the blade was pinched between his fingers. “Try that again and you’ll get a knife in that precious web-shooter, kid.”

“You won’t do it,” Peter said confidently.

Wade threw the knife. It lodged in the hardwood floor, shattering the lightbulb of the overturned lamp at Peter’s feet. Peter didn’t even flinch.

He stepped over the broken lamp and began walking toward Wade again with a determined set to his jaw. Sweat gathered on the back of his neck like dew as he advanced. He hadn’t taken any Tylenol all day, and his anger and the exertion from the movements had his muscles trembling faintly. Peter squared his shoulders against the tremors, but the sudden movement pulled at his abdominal muscles and he was unable to conceal the flash of pain on his face.

“Peter stop it,” Wade said.

Peter kept walking toward him, fighting back another grimace. “Not until you sit down.”

“Stop it, you’re hurting yourself!”

“You know what to do then,” Peter grit out, taking another step despite the lightheadedness. Shit, that was stupid, he thought. But so was Wade. Fucking Wade.

Peter gasped and stumbled on his next step and instinctively shot a web at the wall to catch himself, but Wade was there first, gripping his upper arms tightly and hoisting Peter back on his feet.

“You utter idiot,” Wade snarled. “You manipulative bastard.”

“Worked, didn’t it?” Peter glanced up at him and the tension drained from his face when he saw Wade watching him with a sad expression. They were standing very close together all of a sudden. He leaned forward and brushed his hands over Wade’s hard chest. Wade’s heart was beating roughly under his palm and he bit his lower lip, remembering the strong heartbeat that chased away his nightmares two nights ago.

“I meant what I said,” Peter whispered.

“You’ve said a lot of things, Spidey,” Wade breathed. He stood stiffly, hesitant to relax into Peter’s hands. “Gotta be a little more clear than that for ol’ Deadpool.”

Peter pressed his forehead against Wade’s collarbone and sighed. “I meant what I said when I told you I love you.” He looked up, trying to catch Wade’s eye.

Wade ducked his head down, chin resting against Peter’s temple. They trembled together when Wade exhaled slowly, shakily.

“And I know you’re angry,” Peter continued, “and you have every right to be. And if you don’t love me back, I understand. I lied to you. I hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you, but I did, and I should have told you sooner. I just…I’m so used to keeping my two lives separate, like to the point of paranoia. I’ve only ever told one other person, and she…she died. Because I couldn’t save her.”

Peter sniffled and took a few deep breaths. Wade remained completely still, apart from a heavier rise and fall of his chest that pressed Peter tighter into his arms with each inhale.

Peter pulled away enough to look Wade in the eye again. “What I’m trying to say is that, I…I fell in love. With you. And I shouldn’t have led you on in a lie. There’s no excuse for that. You don’t have to love me back, but my feelings won’t change.”

Wade chuckled wetly and removed an arm from around Peter to wipe at his masked eyes.

“Gosh, you sure know how to sweet talk a girl, Petey. I’m pretty sure I tossed the rest of the good stuff though.”

Peter frowned. “I’m not high, Wade. And I’m not lying.”

Wade leaned his head back and stepped away from Peter. He kept one hand on his back to guide him toward the couch and set his duffle bag on the ground again, rolling shoulder to relieve the tension that had built up.

“I want to believe you, Peter.”

“Wade.”

“But it’s going to take some time for me to trust you again.”

Peter nodded quickly. “No, I know. I get it. I’ll do whatever it takes for you to trust me.” Peter swallowed and worried his lower lip. “What about… the other thing?”

“The L-thing?”

“Yeah, that.”

Wade closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the knees. “Look, Peter, I…”

Peter went very still beside him.

“When I look at you, I feel…dirty, like I have no right to look at you or touch you or—”

“You feel dirty?” Peter asked softly, stifling a sob.

Wade nodded. “Yeah.” He turned to face him, dragging his eyes from the rug on the floor. “I tried to kill you. And every time I look at you, all I see is your blood on my hands, my swords, my bullets in you.” He scrubbed a hand roughly across his face. “I _wanted_ to hurt you. Do you understand? Spiderman broke his promise and I was so _angry_. And I took it out on you, but it never would have happened if you’d told me the truth.”

“Oh god,” Peter said. His chest felt tight.

“But it sucks because you _did_. When you were high. And I didn’t believe you, but can you blame me? You had so many chances to tell me and you…” He clenched his teeth and tried to collect himself. “Shit, I hate feelings.”

Peter curled in on himself, blinking rapidly as tears slid down his cheeks. “I put you in that position. I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered.

“I know,” Wade sighed. “And you know what else sucks?”

Peter shook his head. “What?”

“I love you too,” Wade said miserably. “I love you so much, but I don’t trust you and I hate myself for how excited I was to hurt you. How can I feel all that at the same time? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You didn’t know. This is on _me_ , Wade. You’re not to blame for this.”

“Maybe. But I can’t take back how I felt then. And it hurts to be around you. That’s why I wasn’t…I just couldn’t. I’ll only hurt you again.”

“You won’t, Wade.”

Wade hung his head.

They sat in silence until the city lights replaced the setting sun and the room grew dark. Peter’s eyes began to droop with physical and emotional exhaustion. Wade didn’t look much better.

“Wade?” Peter whispered in the darkness.

“Hm?”

“Can we…just for tonight, can we put all this aside for a little bit? Pretend we’re okay?”

“What do you mean, Petey? This isn’t something we can shove under the rug.”

“I know, but just for tonight. Please. We’re both…drained. I stopped having nightmares when we were spending time together. And then the other night when you…at least, I think you were there. Maybe I dreamed it, forget it. Never mind.” Peter started to climb off the couch.

“No, wait,” Wade said, reaching out cautiously. His hand brushed Peter’s sleeve before he pulled it back. Peter paused, and Wade ducked his head and chuckled sadly to himself.

“No, it’s okay,” Peter said. “I know you said that it hurts to…look at me and…yeah. I shouldn’t have asked. That was really insensitive. I understand.”

“Thanks.”

Peter began to turn away, but Wade said, “But I’d like to pretend too. Just for tonight.”

“Okay.” Peter nodded. “Okay.”

Wade walked Peter slowly back to the bedroom. They didn’t turn on the lights. The darkness suited them both, gave them something to hide behind. Peter had the feeling that he would begin to break if they turned on the light, as though every wound would be bared anew.

Peter drew back the covers and climbed into the bed. He listened to the rustling and thumps as Wade took off his weapons and his belt. The items hit the floor and then the bed dipped beside him.

They shifted around until they were both comfortable and ended up facing each other, arms tucked to their chests, hands beneath their cheeks. Slowly, Wade reached out, watching Peter closely for any signs that he wouldn’t be welcome, but when Peter only looked back at him and blinked, Wade settled his arm gently over Peter’s side and pulled him closer. Peter went willingly and pressed their bodies together, shuddering at the contact, and Wade’s arm tightened around him.

Peter closed his eyes and heard Wade huff in relieved surprise.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who else has seen Defenders? No spoilers in the comments please.  
> Anyone going to see Hitman's Bodyguard? (Deadpool and Fury!)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter, Matt, and Wade begin the search for Peter's stolen blood. It's the first time Peter and Wade are out together on a mission with no secrets between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back for a little while, so here we go again! So sorry for the long wait! Enjoy :) And thank you all for your lovely comments and support for this story.

Matt pinched the bridge of his nose and suppressed a sigh. There were six Hand members in the basement level of the warehouse, five more in the boiler room, and exactly two red-suited morons behind him.

“Shall I let you know when I’ve taken care of the eleven ninjas, or would you like to help?” Matt asked, turning toward his friends with his hands on his hips.

Peter and Wade relaxed from their mutually-hunched postures and stood straight to face Matt.

“Sorry, we were just—”

“Sorry, Batsy—”

Peter jerked around to look at Wade. “What did you call him?”

“Batsy,” Wade said, as though it were obvious. “He’s got…ears.”

“They’re horns,” Matt muttered. “And stop doing that, you look ridiculous.”

Wade wiggled his horn-fingers once more before dropping his hands from his head. “Aw, man. You can’t even see what I’m doing.”

“Don’t need to!” Matt called, jogging toward the basement stairway.

“I’ll take the boiler room,” Wade and Peter announced in unison.

“I’ve got the boiler room, Spidey. You go with Matt.”

“I can handle myself just fine, _Wade_.”

“Well, I’d feel better if you were with Matt. He’s got a lot of experience with these swarthy swathed swole sword-swinging—”

“Would you shut up? It was one time. I was stabbed _one_ time. And it’s pronounced _sword_.”

“Not according to Chaucer, my fine friend.”

Peter threw his hands up. “If you’re so worried about me, then come with me and we’ll take them together.”

“Fine!”

“Fine.”

Wade and Peter glared at each other through their masks, chests heaving. A steady drip from the ceiling marked the seconds that passed.

Wade was the first to break eye contact. He scratched his head. “Um, where’s the boiler room?”

“Ah, I don’t actually know,” Peter admitted. He glanced around the dingy warehouse. “Let’s try this door.”

Wade shrugged. “Okay.” They started forward at the same time.

“I’ll go first,” Peter said.

“No, better let me go first.”

“Wade, honestly—”

“Petey, you can’t sense them, and if they are waiting right behind the door I’d rather have me get skewered.” He turned to Peter with a serious expression and reached out to cup the back of Peter’s neck in that familiar gesture of comfort, but he hesitated and let his hand fall to his side again. Softly, he said, “Please let me.”

Peter sighed and looked up at Wade.

A sharp screeching of metal on metal cut through the air and the door burst open. Wade pushed Peter behind him and drew his swords. A ninja came straight at Wade. Wade moved to strike, but stopped short when the ninja collapsed at his feet, black robes pooling around him.

“If you two are done, we need to find Peter’s stolen blood,” Matt said, stepping over the ninja’s unconscious form. He shouldered his way between Peter and Wade and headed back toward the basement stairs.

“What about the boiler room?” Peter called.

“I cleared the place while you two were bickering! Hurry up before more of them arrive.”

Peter and Wade followed Matt down the staircase. The air grew chilly and damp and it reminded Peter of the sewers. He shivered a bit. Wade nudged his shoulder in support before moving away to examine a tank filled with what looked like blood.

Once Peter noticed the blood in the tank, the dripping sounds seemed to grow louder and louder until he couldn’t distinguish them from the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears. Matt appeared at his elbow a moment later.

“Take a deep breath, Pete, you’re alright.”

Peter nodded and willed his heartbeat to settle. He focused his attention on Wade, whose face was like a storm cloud when he turned away from the tank and stalked toward the rows of cages across the room. “What is this place?”

“It’s one of the farms I told you about before,” Matt said quietly. “They’ve moved all the people though.” He tilted his head. “A few days ago.”

“We need to find them and get them out,” Wade said. His voice echoed strangely in the basement.

Matt sighed. “It won’t work. I’ve seen what they become. Claire said they were being used to incubate something. The Hand was collecting the blood.”

“We can still set them up for transfusions,” Peter said. “I can take samples and work out a treatment plan. Tony will help us—”

Matt shook his head. “They go straight back to the Hand. One of them killed his own father. It’s like they were being controlled with whatever’s been put inside them. I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t know what to do for them. I’m not even sure they were still in there.”

“Well that’s a cheery thought,” Wade said, walking back to join them. “What happened to them?”

“They bled themselves again. I found their bodies…I found them, and it was too late.” Matt clenched his jaw.

“You did your best,” Peter offered somberly. “We’ll stop them. Together.”

Matt crossed the room to examine the cages, leaving Peter and Wade together. Peter didn’t want to think about what the Hand might be doing with his blood. They’d tracked them here, so far, but apart from the few remaining Hand members, the warehouse had been empty.

Wade cleared his throat. Peter blinked, not having realized he’d been rubbing the spot where he’d been stabbed. It had scarred over cleanly, thanks to Wade’s care, but sometimes he could still feel the blade twisting in his gut and—

“We should go on a date.”

“Huh?” Peter asked, startled from his reverie.

“A date. I’ve only been dating half of you,” Wade said flatly.

Peter glanced up, but Wade wasn’t looking at him. He seemed to be scanning the room for access points.

“That sounds good,” Peter said carefully. “We can talk about it more when we’re not in a creepy torture chamber.” Peter moved away to examine the blood tank for himself, now that his panic levels were under control. Wade followed at his heels like a guard dog, and on one hand, it was great that Wade was concerned for his safety and cared about him, but on the other hand Peter felt like he was back at square one as the weakest link, the most incapable fighter against the Hand. It felt like Wade didn’t trust his fighting skills. Had he forgotten that Peter and Spiderman were one and the same? Well, that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it, that they _were_ the same person. Wade seemed to see only Peter Parker, the fragile man he’d injured, not Peter Parker who was also Spiderman and could fight the Hand’s ninjas perfectly well, thanks.

Peter might not be able to detect the ninjas with his spider sense, but he could sure as hell detect everything from bombs to thieving mice. And there were no ninjas in hearing distance, and no bombs, and no mice. The warehouse was deserted except for the three of them. Peter was becoming irritated by his hulking shadow, but they were trying to fix things between them, so he settled for grinding his jaw and feeling guilty for feeling resentful.

Things had been so tense between them before and now Peter felt exhausted, as though a great weight had been lifted from his soul but the space of the burden remained, empty, gaping.

He realized he had been staring into the blood tank for a long time. Wade and Matt were waiting for him at the basement exit.

 

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Date night is rad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had major writer's block on this fic for so long, but then I started a [frostiron fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13500564/chapters/30961288), and that switched on the writing bug again, I guess. So here we go again :)

It was the kind of place where, if you showed up in chucks (even really clean ones), someone was bound to pinch their nose or shoo you out of the place while flapping a perfectly pressed dish cloth in your general direction.

Peter fidgeted in the chair. He was wearing the suit he’d worn to his college graduation, and it still fit, but it also had a large blood stain around the pant legs from when he’d had to fight off what appeared to be a flock of genetically-altered pterodactyl cyborgs in the alley across from where the ceremony was taking place. Their blood was really hard to wash out.

Wade was late. Peter had arrived insanely early, but it was now half past eight and their reservation (private table, private room, thanks to Wade’s last job – and yeah, Peter felt a little funny about that, but he was trying his best not to get into any arguments) had been on the hour.

Wade was late to stuff sometimes, Peter told himself. Once, he had been late because he was dead in a dumpster – make that twice – that Peter knew of. Once Wade was late because he was saving kittens from abusive homes, and well, when you save one, you kind of want to go around saving them all, and that had led to the two of them sneaking around the city with boxes of kittens.

The pre-Hand days were nice. Uncomplicated. Unlike this silverware arrangement. Did one _really_ need three different-sized forks?

Maybe if you had three different-sized eyeballs to stab.

This was getting ridiculous. Peter pulled out his phone to check the time again.

8:37 PM

His phone tumbled from his hands in surprise when a sack was yanked over his head. Peter gripped the rough fabric and pulled, ripping it apart. Seriously? He was angry this time. They’d gotten him once and he’d been bedridden and too mixed up with his complicated feelings and making things right with Wade to feel properly angry at the Hand. But now, in this prissy restaurant with their too-many forks –

Peter stuck all three forks to his fingers and stabbed the arm that was reaching around him. He drew back his fist and punched the Hand ninja in the face, sending him flying into the tastefully-positioned potted plant in the corner of the room. The pot shattered, dirt spilling everywhere.

Peter leapt onto the table and kicked the bread plate at another ninja. The ninja ducked and swung his sword out, just missing Peter’s ankles. Peter landed on the table again, the impact making the wine glass shiver. He nudged the rim with his foot and the top half of the glass bowl fell onto the table, neatly sliced by the Hand’s sword.

“Well shit,” Peter said.

The ninjas yanked the table cloth out from under him, bundling it up again to use as a makeshift net. Peter tripped on the edge of the table and fetched up hard against a decorative pillar on the side of the room. The table cloth was tossed over him, and for a moment, Peter was back in elementary school playing cat-and-mouse in that obnoxious parachute game with Flash launching himself all over, trying to squish Peter beneath the rippling mass of fabric.  

The ninjas piled on; so they were going for a live-capture this time. Not if Peter had any say. He got his legs under him and leapt up, sticking to the ceiling through the table cloth. The ninjas tumbled off and rolled, coming up, swords drawn, in perfect crouches all. Peter tugged the cloth up and threw it over them, sticking its four corners to the floor with well-placed webs. While they made their way out of it, hacking, Peter scuttled along the ceiling and punched his way out the window. He paused to catch his breath beneath an ornate carving of vine leaves on the side of the building.

“This date is going so well!” Peter threw his head back, laughing a bit hysterically.

“Oh my god there’s more.”

They were rappelling toward him from the rooftop, barely visible against the darkening sky.

 

 

Wade woke up in a bath tub with three IV lines in his right wrist and a tube in his chest, nestled beneath his collar bone, leading away from him toward a destination he couldn’t make out in the gloom. The tube inside him was pinching the nerves in his neck, and his first thought was of surprise, because tubes usually didn’t stay put inside him. His healing factor pushed them out after a while.

It was like being back with Francis. Too much like being back there. The place smelled similar and the dirty concrete floors were glossy with blood. Wade tried not to think about that. It was supposed to be in the past. Francis was dead. He could survive anything now. He’d be fine.

But the tube was still in his chest.

Wade tried to pull it out, but lifting his arm might as well have been lifting a bus. He’d never actually tried to lift a bus before, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t something he could bench on the regular. Spiderman could, no problem. He’d seen him lift buses – that was so hot.

Wade pressed his fingers weakly against the metal sides of the tub and they stuck. He pulled back, but they still stuck there.

“Well fuck me sideways,” he said, voice hoarse. “I always imagined that if I ever mixed my fluids with Spidey’s that it’d be in the sexy way, not the forced blood transfusion way.” He glanced at his watch (a Rolex with multiple dials he’d lifted off someone on his last mission – oddly still on his wrist – but then again he was also still in his dinner jacket, he noticed). “And on date night, no less! So unromantic!”

“Hey! Ninja zombies! I’m late for a very important date! Can you help a gal out?”

The room echoed with his voice.

As Wade blinked and his eyes adjusted to the dim lights, he noticed the large tank in the center of the room.

He squinted at it. “Well that sure don’t look like a fish tank.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you to everyone for staying with this fic and reading and commenting and kudo-ing (?)/kudo-bestowing (?). I love hearing from you all, and I love writing this pairing. More Limb-Reattacher to come soon!
> 
> Edit: giving kudos! XD Thanks, NightShade!


	16. Chapter 16

Cockblocking was the line Wade drew and the Hand had crossed it – no, they’d gone at least a mile past and knocked over thirty little grandmas and a stack of pancakes.

You just didn’t let perfectly good pancakes and grandmas go to waste like that. It was blasphemy! It was sacrilege! Desecration! Profanation! Impiousness! Impotence!

“Wait, no, not that last one. Thank goodness.” He took a breath. “Aw,” he groaned, letting it all out in a huff. “I’m fresh out of synonyms. I could have made sweet sweet love with my Petey.” He checked his watch. “Be making! It’s only ten-thirty. I would tap that ass all night long. I called it from the beginning. And sure, we’re still working on the trust thing, but sexperts say that sex can be a trust-building couples’ activity. Or is it the other way around?”

The tank in the middle of the room kept filling with blood. Wade was beginning to feel woozy. Visions of Spidey danced in his head. Spidey in a ball gown. Spidey in a summer dress. Spidey in go-go boots. Spidey in ---

The room shook. Wade lifted his head from the edge of the tub and watched blearily as something burst through the wall.

 

All that lay between Peter and the Hand were some stone carvings and a rapidly shrinking stretch of building façade. Peter had no time to form a plan of counter-attack before the Hand descended upon him. He leapt from the building and shot a web out to swing across the street.

He was nearly across when he felt the web go slack. One of the Hand’s arrows had pierced it, and Peter was hurtling toward the ground. He landed on the hood of a car and rolled onto the sidewalk, groaning. Passersby in well-cut suits and designer dresses stared. Peter ducked his head and ran down the street, looking for an alley so he could get back to the rooftops. He needed to stay off street-level – he hadn’t worn his Spidey suit underneath his clothes.

There was no time to go back for it. The Hand must have captured Wade, and they had nearly caught him as well. Peter tried to think of an escape route. He needed to throw the Hand off his trail so he could get his bearings, but his mind had gone blank. He found himself staring at the same brick in the wall second after second as the ninjas closed in.

They came from either end of the alley. Without much conscious thought, Peter shot two webs straight up at the building beside him and launched himself away. He landed half-way up and scaled the wall to the roof. More ninjas were coming toward him. Three approached on his right, three on the left, and he was sure there was a group coming up behind him as well. He had an opening; they were herding him. Without a better plan in mind, Peter ran, leaping from roof to roof, keeping just ahead of the ninjas. Wherever they wanted him was probably where they had Wade.

The suit jacket was growing restrictive. Peter had put on more muscle in the years since his college graduation. Suits were replaceable though. He tore it off and leapt over an alley, letting the jacket flutter to the grimy streets below. They were headed into a darker part of town.

If the Hand’s ninjas set off his spidey sense, he was sure it would be tingling enough to give him a migraine. As it was, the scene before him was unbearably silent. The upper levels of the warehouse were dark. Dust-encrusted windows repelled the weak light of the single street lamp on the block. Peter swung over and crashed through the glass, feet first. He came up in a crouch in a room awash with a sickening green-tinged glow. A fluorescent tube light flickered, swinging on its broken chain. Someone was nearby.

A sword swished, shaving off a few threads from Peter’s dress shirt before he was able to turn from the blade. Peter webbed the sword to the wall and leapt blindly onto the desk in the corner of the room. The ninja came at him again and Peter kicked him and heard bones cracking. He didn’t care. Then it was quiet.

No more movement. No sounds of clothing. Just his own heartbeat.

Peter jumped off the desk and went to the doorway. He stuck his head out, listening carefully and checking both ways of the corridor. It was empty, quiet. They knew he was here though. Why weren’t they attacking?

Peter walked down the hall, taking care to step lightly. He emerged into a wide space, poorly lit, with stale air. The upper level ended in a railing that ran around the perimeter of the room toward a staircase that spiraled down in jagged twists. Peter followed it with his eyes until he could see no further. Wade was probably down there, he thought with a sigh. He rolled up his sleeves and shot a web to the ceiling, directly above the staircase. Then he descended slowly, watching the lights of the upper floors flicker as if in farewell. The darkness of the lower levels crept up and Peter could no longer see his own hands gripping the web-line.

He touched ground after what seemed quite a long time and released the web. The floor was cold enough that he could feel it through the soles of his dress shoes. The air was damp and his breath hung thick and heavy like fog before him, steaming up his glasses. One of the frames had cracked after he’d fallen onto the car. Hearing no movement, Peter took them off and ran his fingertip over the frame. He webbed the two fractured ends together and stuck them back on his face and glared into the darkness as his eyes adjusted to it.

There was a cluster of machinery in the corner and another passageway leading off from this room that Peter guessed led to the sewers, by the smell. It was unlikely they were keeping Wade in the sewers. Peter had a creeping suspicion that this latest kidnapping had something to do with the blood farms. The Hand had bled Wade before. Peter shuddered at the memory of Wade in the dumpster, of Wade reviving in his bath tub and brushing off his death like dust from an old jacket.

He knew the Hand had his blood too. He absently rubbed his stomach, feeling the edges of the scar through his thin shirt. If he concentrated, he could feel the sharp prick of the needle that the Hand had used to take his blood. It was there, in his arm, but it wasn’t red. It was clear like the synthetic heroin the Hand manufactured.

“Oh no.”

He yanked the dart out and tossed it away, spinning around to see where it had come from. He wasn’t sure how fast his healing factor would burn through the drug, but he needed to find Wade and get them out before he crashed.

Peter took off down the nearest corridor. Everything was cold and wet and made of concrete and he hated it. They were keeping Wade here, in this place that would bring back his terrible memories of that government facility. Peter clenched his fists. Part of him hoped Wade would be unconscious so he wouldn’t have to see these walls with their ooze and their mildew and the feeling of being compressed.

Peter wandered the corridors without running into any more of the ninjas. They were out there somewhere though, and it made Peter itch with frustration to be kept in the dark like this.

A few minutes passed before a tingling crept up Peter’s neck. It didn’t stop there as it usually did; the spider sense washed over his shoulders, down his back and legs to his toes, and his whole body seemed to come alive. Did the Hand know how he would react to their new drug? Peter supposed they had no idea. Perhaps they hoped to control him through an addiction, but if they knew what he was feeling, they no doubt would have just slit his throat.

The mildewed walls faded to the background of Peter’s perception. Whereas before they had registered as confining and solid, now they were hardly of note. Peter took a deep breath and let his newly amplified senses spread out, sending out his hearing through the warehouse. He touched the walls with his fingertips and felt the vibrations of mice and salamanders – he felt the footfalls of the Hand’s ninjas, several floors above as though they were treading on an elaborate web-line he’d cast. He was nearly overwhelmed by the sensory input, and only removed his fingertips from the walls reluctantly. He could hear Wade now, and he was not far.

Peter took off down the corridor. As he ran, his spider sense tingled, and he slid beneath one of the Hand’s blade. He’d missed this one in his sweep of the place, too consumed with euphoria at his heightened senses to notice one so close and quiet. But his senses seemed to be outstripping his brain. The ninja swung his sword again, but Peter heard the chatter of the sewer mice and blood bloomed on his thigh, soaking his black slacks. The wet feeling brought Peter back to the ninja before him. He webbed the wound shut, but felt no pain. The ninja went down when Peter snapped his sword arm and kicked his legs out from under him.

“WADE,” he shouted. Wade was on the other side of this wall. Peter pressed his hands to it, clinging, and yanked. The concrete was thick. Peter ran back down the corridor.

In the large room into which he had descended he found what he was looking for. The machinery lay in a heap, bits scattered around it, but it was the heavy drill head Peter wanted. This must have been what was used to tunnel down here. Peter webbed it up and dragged it behind him. It just barely fit down the corridor.

Peter hefted it onto his shoulder and threw it at the wall. The concrete shuddered and hairline cracks bleed around the edges of the wall. Peter retrieved it and threw it again, and again. The fifteenth time, it burst through the wall.

That’s when the alarms began to sound.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He ripped off his clothes and tightened the strap of his watchband.  
> “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, baby boy.”  
> “Yeah,” said Peter, trying to drag his eyes up to Wade’s face – or even just chest-level would have been good. “Let’s blow this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, guys!

Wade had never been so grateful to feel his own healing factor sweeping through his body. Bit by bit, his senses sharpened, his muscles twitched, and his body flushed out whatever chemical cocktail the Hand had pumped him with. Spidey’s blood trickled out of the wounds left behind by the tubes and drains, and then Wade’s skin knit itself together and he was whole. He stood up and only slipped a little in the murky puddle of the tub. His slacks and suit jacket were beyond the help of a good wash cycle at the laundromat, but no matter. Peter loved his body, apparently, and well, he was about to get an eyeful. Wade liked to make an entrance, after all.

He ripped off his clothes and tightened the strap of his watchband.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand, baby boy.”

“Yeah,” said Peter, trying to drag his eyes up to Wade’s face – or even just chest-level would have been good. “Let’s blow this.”

“Popsicle stand,” Wade prompted, smirking.

“Yes.” Peter nodded. And kept staring. “I’m really, really high right now,” he said.

“I can see that,” Wade said, stepping out of the tub. “Stay close to me, baby boy. Damn, that alarm is really getting on my nerves. Petey? Whatcha doing?”

Peter pressed his fingertips to the wall and closed his eyes, inhaling slowly, as he sent out his Hand-heroin-spider senses.

“Oh, holy fucking longhorn cattles,” Wade whispered, and fanned himself as though he were hot (he totally was) while Peter punched another (smaller) hole in the concrete and ripped a handful of wires out, sparks flying like a “FIIIIIIREWORK~!!”

Wade snapped his mouth shut. The alarm cut off, but not soon enough. There were two ninjas standing in the rubble of the first hole Peter had knocked in the wall, looking uncertain. They did not seem to share his enthusiasm for Katy Perry. Or maybe it was because Peter was sort of destroying everything else in the room now too (with his bare hands in a slightly too-tight dress shirt).

“I’m just gonna go help him,” Wade said to the ninjas, jerking his thumb in the direction of Peter’s destruction.

The ninjas formed up and then at least twenty more crowded into the room.

“You will die here,” one said, “and then we will continue with your blood.”

“Oh, you _can_ talk!” Wade exclaimed. “Petey! They can talk. Petey…?” Wade watched as Peter slowly toppled and fell onto his face with a dull thud.

“Um. Okay. Huh.” He turned back to the army of ninjas. They were outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and Peter was down. “What’s with him? Fainting on me in my moment of need, not cool, amiright?” Wade said, stalling.

Shit. He had no idea what Peter had taken – it was obviously much stronger than the narcotics he’d been on during his recovery. Wade had never seen him use his spidey senses to find things before – mostly it was just a duck and cover alert system response to danger. But Peter had located the right wires through solid concrete, almost like Matt. Except he didn’t think Matt could punch holes in concrete. Had Peter been hitting the gym behind his back?!

Focus, Wade told himself. The ninjas were advancing and they seemed unlikely to be stopped with inane chatter. Time to show them the true DP magic.

“Come and get me, motherfuckers.”

 

Wade had always enjoyed camp fires. Before the Weapon X program, he’d taken great pleasure in making s’mores and roasting marshmallows and steaks and occasionally scumbags who wouldn’t talk. (Well, he still enjoyed the last part on occasion.) Now, he wasn’t quite as keen on fire, but a nice bonfire was a beautiful thing to watch from a distance. All those embers and shit floating up in the air, crackling wood, the tang of smoke in the back of his throat when the wind carried it toward him.

Wade hugged Peter against his chest as they sat on the roof across the street from the Hand’s facility and watched it burn to the ground.

“It’s almost over, baby boy,” Wade whispered. The fire trucks arrived on the scene and Wade took that as his cue to leave. He tossed Peter over his shoulder and headed toward one of his safe houses. They passed through the night unseen on the rooftops.

(But not unheard. Somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen, someone sighed loudly and grumbled about idiots blowing shit up.)

 

Peter woke up feeling very stiff and very nauseous. The Deadpool plushie from his apartment was staring at him, propped against the toilet tank. Peter dry heaved over the edge of the toilet; there wasn’t much to bring up, but his stomach disagreed.

The door flew open. Peter sagged against the porcelain.

“Petey! You’re awake.”

“Wade—”

“Just take it easy,” Wade said, crouching beside him to rub his back. “You’ll be good as new in no time.”

“Are we—did we—?”

“I burned the placed to the ground. The blood’s been destroyed.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew an empty syringe dart. “I found this on the way out. It’s their heroin, isn’t it?”

Peter nodded and looked away, cheeks growing red starkly against his sick-pale complexion.

“What’s the matter, baby boy?”

Peter tugged the Deadpool plushie off the toilet and hugged it. He shrugged. “I just feel disgusted by how much I liked it.”

“Oh,” Wade said softly. He sat down next to Peter and pulled him into his lap.

“Wait, I might throw up all over you,” Peter protested.

“Don’t care,” Wade said, locking his arms around Peter. He sighed. “It wasn’t your fault, baby. They forced it on you – that’s what syringe darts are generally for,” he added.

Peter cracked a small smile. “True. I guess it’s really that I’m afraid I’ll want it again.”

“I’ve got your back, Peter. If you think you’re slipping, you call me, no matter what, and I’ll be there for you.” He rubbed Peter’s neck gently. “What did it do to you? I mean, I have a pretty good guess, but I want to hear it from you.”

“I felt like I was burning up inside. My senses went crazy – I could hear _everything_. Mice, footsteps on the roof. It was really overwhelming at first. It was like everything around me got dumped on my senses and I couldn’t filter through it all fast enough. But I could sense the ninjas then, and I felt…safe. No pain, enhanced strength, enhanced everything. It was a real power trip.”

“And you still came for me.”

“Well, of course, Wade. I wasn’t going to leave you there!”

“I mean, even with all that power overwhelming you, you still came for me. You put all that into knocking the biggest fucking hole straight through like a yard of concrete to get to me. That was really hot by the way.”

“So.” Peter hesitated. “You’re saying I was in control? Wade, I may have done all that, but I didn’t feel in control. I was barely hanging on just trying to focus through it all.”

“No, no, no. I mean, yes.”

Peter frowned.

“Yes. No. The drug was out of your control, but you fought through it. What I’m trying to say, in a really awful confusing way, is that you shouldn’t blame yourself for getting hit by their stuff, and you should feel proud that you’re getting past it. You beat it, Petey. You beat them. You saved me. Yeah, yeah, I got us out, I know what you’re about to say, but I would have been good for jack shit if you hadn’t come and pulled those tubes out of me. I couldn’t _move_ , Petey. They had me. It was like being back… But you saved me. Don’t forget that. And I will always be there to save you.”

“Wade?”

“Yes?”

“I love you. Also, I’m about to puke again.”

Wade supported Peter by the toilet, keeping an arm around him and rubbing his back.

“I love you too, baby boy, vomit and all. And I want you to know,” he said, easing Peter back against him when the heaving spasms had passed, “I know you can take care of yourself. You’re Peter and you’re Spiderman, and I trust you. But you’re also mine now, and that means I will always be there for you, even though you don’t need me to fight your battles.”

“Gosh, Wade, you’re gonna make me cry. And vomit-crying is just disgusting.”

Wade laughed, shaking Peter with it against his chest. He kissed his temple and leaned back against the side of the tub.

“I mean it though,” Wade said.

“I know you do. And I’ll always be there for you. Just ‘cause you can’t die doesn’t mean you don’t need someone to hold you together.”

“You really are the best at holding limbs together.”

“Oh, so there have been others?” Peter joked.

“Maybe. I forgot about them all the day I met you.”

Peter turned around his arms and mock-glared. “You are such a sap, Wade Wilson.”

“You love it!”

“I’m hungry now.”

“Hey, that’s a good sign. I’ll make you something to eat. Come on.”

 

Peter felt much improved after eating. His healing factor kicked into full gear in the presence of nutrients. Wade’s chicken soup really was to die for.

“You want to join me?” Peter asked, sliding a bar of soap down his chest. He splashed some water at Wade, who was sitting on the toilet seat, leering at him.

“How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess.” Peter glanced at Wade’s crotch.

“Yeah, I suppose I could,” Wade said, shrugging nonchalantly. He stood up, towering over Peter, and stripped off his t-shirt over his head. Peter made a noise in the water.

Wade stepped into the bath and then it was an awkward scramble of limbs and a bad reenactment of Archimedes’ principle that would likely require a mop, or at least several towels on the bathroom floor.

“Bed, maybe?” asked Peter, looking at the water sloshing over the sides of the tub.

“Ah,” Wade sighed, disappointed. “It is a little cramped in here.”

Peter leapt onto the ceiling and landed lightly on the wet floor, giving Wade room to clamor out of the tub.

“We have got to have sex on the ceiling one day,” Wade muttered under his breath, watching Peter streak toward the bed, towel forgotten. Eh, who needed towels anyway?

The sun was coming up when they hit the sheets, but neither noticed. Peter pulled Wade toward him and Wade went eagerly.

“I have wanted you for so long,” Peter whispered, brushing his lips against Wade’s jaw. Wade closed his eyes and bared his neck for Peter, pulse leaping under his skin. For once, he was silent. Peter pressed his lips firmly to Wade’s neck and dragged his tongue over the scars, sucking lightly and then harder, biting down until Wade gasped.

“You’re mine,” Peter said, tongue soothing the bite mark, even as it healed.

“And you’re mine,” Wade growled, pushing himself up on his hands to look at Peter spread out beneath him, chest flushed, skin still warm and damp from the bath. Peter bit his lip and moaned as Wade shifted his weight, cock pressing against Peter’s thigh. Peter’s own cock lay rigid against his belly. Slowly, Wade rocked his hips, and Peter found himself stroking Wade’s sides, and sliding his hands down his back and lower to grip his ass and pull him closer. Wade’s muscles flexed beneath his hands as he moved, but he wasn’t moving where Peter wanted him. A bit of super strength fixed that. Peter hauled Wade closer, pulling him firmly on top of him so their cocks were trapped between their bellies.

“Baby boy,” Wade said, pressing his forehead against Peter’s. “You feel amazing. I can’t believe—”

“Shut up,” Peter breathed, pulling him down for a kiss. Wade’s lips parted and Peter slid his tongue into his mouth, dragging it against Wade’s. Wade bit down as Peter withdrew and pulled Peter’s bottom lip between his teeth, tugging and nipping before covering Peter’s mouth with his own again.

Peter wrapped his arms around Wade’s neck, kissing him back eagerly. Wade reached out and tugged one of the night stand drawers open, dropping his considerable weight on Peter, but Peter only groaned and held him closer, loving the feel of their chests pressed together, hearts pounding. Then Wade’s hand was between them, gripping both their cocks in a firm, slick hold. He pushed Peter’s legs apart with his knees and held himself up on one elbow as he pumped them both. Peter reached for him again, pulling him closer, and rocked his hips with Wade, panting against his neck, his breath hot. Wade groaned, deep in his chest, and bit down on at the base of Peter’s neck, sucking hard at the mark in satisfaction when Peter bucked into him in surprise.

Two could play that game though. Peter stole a kiss before wrapping his legs around Wade and flipping them over. Wade grunted, landing on his back, and Peter pinned him there with a hand on his chest and another wrapped around his cock.

“Where’s your lube?” he asked. Wade nodded toward the rickety night stand drawer. Peter fished it out and slicked up his own cock again.

“You are so fucking gorgeous,” Wade said. Peter kissed him hungrily and began to jerk Wade’s cock as he thrust between Wade’s thighs, trapped between his own.

“Fuck,” Wade groaned. “Fuck, Petey. You feel so good.” He gripped Peter’s ass, squeezing, urging him on.

“Want you so bad, Wade.”

“You got me.”

Wade reached between them, wrapped his hand around Peter’s, and jerked his cock faster. He spilled over their hands and Peter came after a few more thrusts. He collapsed against Wade’s chest and kissed him hard, out of breath.

“I think this was a nice first date,” Peter said, rolling off Wade.

“Hell yeah,” Wade said. He put his arm around Peter. Peter settled his head on Wade’s shoulder. “It was very…us. Kidnapping, explosions, puking, fighting off ninjas trying to steal our blood. Just your run of the mill dinner and a movie, basically.”

“That’s _our_ dinner and a movie.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Wade brushed his fingers over the scar on Peter’s stomach.

Peter covered his hand with his own and drew it toward his lips to kiss Wade’s fingers. “They’ll come back. But we’ll be ready for them.”

Wade nuzzled him. “Together.”

There was an insistent knock at the door. The kind that suggested there had been previous knocks. Peter groaned. “The Hand doesn’t knock on doors, right?”

“Not that I know of,” Wade said. “Let’s go.”

“Aren’t you gonna put on some clothes?”

Wade yanked the sheet off the bed. Peter went tumbling to the floor with it. “Hey! What are you— _mmph_ ”

“Perfect! Let’s go.” Wade tugged on the sheet again, pulling Peter after him in the two-man toga.

“What if it is the Hand?”

“We just decided they don’t knock on doors.”

“Fine,” Peter relented, rolling his eyes. “Lead the way.”

“You’re stepping on the sheet!”

“Sorry.”

Wade threw open the door. A very unimpressed-looking lawyer stood outside.

“I knew it!” Wade gasped.

“You two are very loud,” Matt said, by way of greeting. “But I’m glad you finally managed to pull your heads out of your asses.”

“Wellllll,” Wade began. Peter slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Nope! No. Stop it. Matt, did you need something? I’m sorry.”

Matt smirked. “I just came by to make sure you two weren’t bleeding out or something, but you seem just fine.”

“Thanks, Matt,” Peter said in the sheet toga, not awkwardly at all. Matt couldn’t _hear_ bite marks, right? “We should all get pizza sometime and hang out…normally.”

“That sounds good. Let me know,” Matt said, turning to leave.

When he was at the end of the hall, Wade shouted, “Hey! How did you find us?” This was a safe house after all – a Deadpool certified safe house.

“I told you: you two make a lot of noise!”

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
